Текст книги "Bewitched"

Автор книги: Laura Thalassa

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

I shake my head as I open the door. “Sorry,” I say, “I lost my thoughts there for a moment.”

Kane bends down and brushes his lips against my cheek, and it takes everything in me not to wipe his kiss away.

What is wrong with me?

I hold the door open, stepping away from Kane to put a little distance between us. I draw in a deep breath, trying to sort out my mind.

Kane takes in my place, his nostrils flaring as he breathes in my scent. His eyes touch on the sticky notes that cover my walls and furniture.

My heart races, and I feel vulnerable all over again. People always think they’re going to like the weird, quirky girl, but legitimate weirdness isn’t always cute and quirky. It’s often just…off-putting.

“Nice room,” Kane says, and I think he’s being sincere. I know I want to believe it.

I step inside as well, closing the door behind me.

“Um, there’s something you should know about me,” I say.

“What?” he says, turning to meet my eyes.

I force the words out. “There’s a chance I’ll forget tonight.”

He raises his eyebrows. “What?” he says again, this time a little more alarmed.

I look him over, unsure just how much he knows about me.

“My magic…it feeds on my memories,” I admit. “Every time I use my power, I lose some. I don’t get to choose which ones. So…I really might forget tonight.”

Kane’s brows draw together, and I have no idea what he’s thinking.

“I just…wanted to let you know in case that changes things,” I add.

Realization sparks in his eyes. “That’s why you stood me up back at Peel, isn’t it?” he says, putting the pieces together. As if the world makes so much more sense now that he knows he was never truly rejected.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I nod.

Kane frowns a little. “Do you want me to go?” he asks me softly.

“No—no! I just wanted you to know in case this memory gets taken from me.”

Please, magic, don’t take my memory of banging my smoking-hot werewolf crush.

Kane’s face relaxes, and he steps into my space. “I think I can handle a little amnesia,” he says.

Either this dude really wants my pussy, or he’s being exceptionally understanding. I mean, if a guy told me he’d have sex with me but might not remember it afterward…I just don’t know how big I’d be about it.

Kane’s hand cups my jaw, and suddenly, his lips are on mine. Just like that, my worry dissipates. I fall into the kiss, sliding my hands to his torso.

Another whisper of magic skims over my skin, like the stroke of a lover. It, more than the kiss, has my core throbbing. I arch into the phantom touch, wanting more.

Kane’s fingers move to my hair, and my own grip tightens on him. The more intense the kiss becomes, the more I get a niggling sense that something is…off. I just don’t know what. It’s something sensory—like the feel and smell of him isn’t right. I don’t know what to make of it, so I ignore it.

I slip my hands under his shirt, and ever-loving Goddess, I can feel each one of his abs.

Shifters.

He lifts me, wrapping my legs around his waist, and the whole thing is hitting all my buttons.

Kane moves us over to my bed before laying me out and draping himself over me. He buries his face into my neck, then pauses. There’s a rumble low in his throat.

“Why does your bed smell like raw meat?” he asks, running his lips and nose up and down my throat.

“My bed smells like raw meat?” My voice has risen with my alarm.

“Mm-hmm,” he says as he kisses me.

Freaking Nero.

“Um, my familiar apparently has poor etiquette.”

Next time I see that panther, he is going to hear about this.

Kane smiles against me, then nips the skin of my neck. I gasp, grinding my pelvis against him.

He releases my flesh—though I swear he’s reluctant to do so.

“It’s bringing out my predator,” he admits.

“Is that bad?” I ask, torn myself. While I find the idea of his animal side hot, his teeth on my neck have forced me to think about claiming bites, which is a hard no for me.

Kane shakes his head. “It’s fine. I’m in control.”

I think Kane finds the whole thing oddly erotic.

He grinds against me, and fuck, I think seeing Kane completely let go would be worth the risk of a claiming bite.

Okay, fine, it wouldn’t, but I’m all for the wild sex that would go along with it.

I stare up at him. “You’re not going to be weird about this the next time we see each other?”

Kane pauses, his breath coming in quick pants. “No. Are you?”

“Without a doubt.”

He smiles at that. “It’s all right, Selene. I like your brand of weird.” He punctuates the statement by nuzzling my face, then rubbing his cheek against mine, an action that seems distinctly wolfish.

“Besides,” he adds, “you seem to think things will go back to the way they were before tonight.”

I frown, turning to him. “They won’t?”

Instead of answering me, Kane bends down to kiss me again. It feels like the sort of kiss that’s meant to show rather than tell his intentions. And the slow glide of his lips and the sensual rocking of his hips make me think that maybe I’m supposed to believe he really does want more from me than just one night.

Part of me thrills at the thought, but then another part of me is vehemently against that. I don’t know why.

Kane reaches for the shoulder of my dress. He moves the material away and brushes his lips along the exposed skin. My breath hitches.

I need more.

I sit up, forcing Kane back so he’s kneeling, my legs still draped around him.

Then I remove my arms, one by one, from the stretchy material of my dress to let it pool at my waist.

Those wolfish eyes look hungry as he takes me in. I feel decidedly self-conscious in my tattered nude bra, but whatever, it’s not going to be on for long.

My magic stirs, tugging at my heart and skimming over my skin as I reach for Kane’s shirt. I feel my power slip past the shifter, reaching for something across my room and out my window.

My attention is drawn back to Kane when he grabs the hem of his shirt and pulls it off, then tosses it aside.

Shirtless Kane is a sight to behold. He’s all taut, packed muscle.

His nostrils flare as I take him in, as though he’s breathing in my desire.

Crap, he probably is. Lycanthropes can smell everything.

Before I can react, he leans into me, cupping my face as his lips find mine once more.

We fall back onto my bed, wrapped up in each other. I’m running my hands up his sides when I feel what I swear is Memnon’s magic back against my skin, stroking, stroking…

I gasp at the feel of it, my body electrified by its touch. It creeps up my arms, drawing out my gooseflesh.

I look for the magic, and this time, I do see the indigo plumes of it moving over my flesh—plumes Kane can’t see and probably can’t much sense either.

It hits me then—beyond the booze and the haze of desire—that the sorcerer who has been in my head this evening, has also been using his magic to draw out my desire.

One of those strands of magic now curls in on itself against my upper arm while Kane kisses my neck. It looks so innocuous, and beneath it, my flesh puckers. As I watch, that magic thickens.

If Memnon’s power is here, then…then he must be close by.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

I push against Kane’s chest, forcing the shifter to sit up as Memnon’s magic grows around us.

“What is it?” Kane says, his gaze hooded with desire.

“You need to go,” I say, giving him another push to get him moving.

The shifter stays stubbornly where he is. “Did I do something wrong?”

The indigo magic now floods the room, and my intuition—intuition I steadfastly ignored all evening—is screaming forewarnings at me.

“I have more issues than just my memory,” I tell him, scrambling to get up and forcing my arms back into my dress sleeves. The power around me has changed, no longer sensual but agitated, violent.

“You need to go,” I insist. “Now.”

At the direct order, I see Kane’s eyes flash, and I feel his own dominance rise at the challenge. “I’m not—”

BOOM!

The entire house rocks, and my window shatters. Something slams into Kane, and a split-second later, his body hits the wall, the plaster buckling under the force.

I hear a wolfish yelp at the impact, and as Kane crumples to the floor, a massive man looms over the shifter. I don’t need to see the sleeve of tattoos running down his arm to know who it is.

“Memnon!” I cry, my stomach bottoming out as the sorcerer drags Kane back to his feet. “Stop!”

Memnon somehow manages to make Kane look small and boyish as he lifts the lycan by the throat.

To my horror, Kane’s eyes have shifted, and his teeth have sharpened.

“You dare to touch what is mine, wolf?” Memnon roars, his eyes beginning to glow.

His magic is mounting, and I feel the vicious intent of it as it swirls around us.

“Memnon, stop!” I shout as I swing myself off the bed.

Beneath the sorcerer’s hand, a partially shifted Kane now returns to his human form. Only…he’s not the one doing the shifting; Memnon seems to be, his power so dense, I taste it on my tongue. Kane growls and yelps the entire time as though every second of it is agonizing. Once he’s fully human, he’s drenched in sweat and breathing heavily.

“I will castrate you and feed you your own godsdamned dick for what you have done!” the sorcerer bellows.

There aren’t words for the terror coursing through my veins. But beneath it brews my anger.

I lift my hand, my rage channeling down my arm.

“Release him!” The words come out in another language, and with it, my power sweeps over the room, the sherbet-orange hue of my magic overtaking the dark blue plumes of his own.

I feel it the moment my spell catches hold.

Memnon must as well because for the first time since he broke in, he turns to me.

“Release him?” he says. He eyes the lycanthrope. “Fine.”

Rather than simply let Kane go, Memnon hurls the shifter out my broken window.

I cry out, horrified as I hear Kane’s body snap branches and rustle leaves as it falls.

My power flows out of me then, racing after Kane. There’s no spell or any intricate design to go along with it, just intent—save Kane.

Unfortunately, my power is too slow.

I rush over to the window in time to hear the dull thump of Kane hitting the ground, no magic there to soften the impact.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

My magic recoils into me an instant later, and I feel that insidious tug inside my head, the one that indicates I lost another memory from using my power.

It doesn’t matter. Not when Kane may be out there dying.

I swing my leg out the gaping hole that was my window, but Memnon scoops me up from behind.

“First you trap me in a tomb and fuck me over for two millennia, and now you dare to break our unbreakable vows and touch another?” Memnon growls against my ear. The lilt of the ancient language curls around me like one long, unbroken memory.

Has this man forgotten our entire last conversation?

“I—am not—Roxilana!” I kick at him.

Memnon ignores the strikes and, clutching me close, he steps onto the broken windowsill, then leaps off.

For a moment, I’m weightless. Then we land, and my entire body jolts from the impact, my teeth clicking together.

I catch sight of Kane’s slumped form, and I let out a horrified scream.

There’s a pool of blood around him, and he’s lying there, unmoving.

I struggle in the sorcerer’s grip all over again, but Memnon holds me fast. And then, he begins to carry me away, just like those captive fae brides Sybil warned me about.

Oh, hell no.

“Let go of me!” The command comes out in Sarmatian, though I barely notice. I’m spitting mad and consumed with worry for Kane.

Memnon ignores my shrieks and my struggles, continuing to stride onward, into the darkened woods.

In the distance I sense my familiar, but when I slip into his mind, all I see is forest.

Come now! I call to him, though I don’t know if Nero heard or felt compelled by the command.

Moving back into my own mind is confusing because the scenery is nearly the same—more darkened trees.

Once I get my bearings, I strike out with my power. The sorcerer laughs. Laughs.

The fucking gall.

“Don’t insult me, Empress. You know you’ll have to do much more than that if you wish to harm me.”

“You psycho! Let me go!” I twist in his arms, my magic flaring out of me with my panic and anger. It doesn’t so much as loosen his hold.

We’ve long since lost sight of the coven house when Memnon finally stops, reluctantly setting me down.

I’m breathing hard, my heart pounding a mile a minute when I turn and catch sight of him. The moonlight falls upon his features, turning them sinister. They tug at my mind, and for one brief second, I’m somewhere else—

Memnon grabs the long length of his hair and withdraws a knife.

Before I can react, he brings his blade to his coarse dark locks, and with one brutal stroke, he cuts most of it off.

Then the image is gone. The same man stands before me, but his eyes are harder, the set of his mouth harsher. Despite how angry he looks, every inch of my skin buzzes with this electrifying awareness.

Empress…you are mine…

I rub my temple, wanting him out of my head. I also want to scream because I thought we’d dealt with this whole mistaken-identity issue.

“I need to go back to Kane!” I can’t help the panic that slides into my voice. If he’s still alive, he may not be for long. Not unless I help heal him.

“Get back to him?” I see murder in his eyes when he glances past me toward the residence hall. “Sure, I will go back. That way, if that beast isn’t already dead, I can make good on my earlier threats to castrate him.”

Maiden, Mother, and Crone, the man truly is a psycho.

Panic takes over my thoughts, and now I’m the one gripping Memnon, determined to keep him here and away from Kane, even as my heart pounds wildly because the shifter needs help.

“And now you think to protect him from me? Your mate?” Memnon’s eyes are glowing again. I hadn’t realized they stopped until now. That only snags my attention for a second because—

“Mate?” I echo.

Things inside me go very quiet and very still.

“We have spoken our vows before your gods and mine,” Memnon continues. “You and I were molded from the same bit of earth. The Fates spun our threads together. And we entered our own covenant. Your mind may be addled—”

Addled?

“—yet there are some truths even it cannot deny.”

“I am not that woman!” I shriek at him. “You know this—you acknowledged it yourself.

“Now,” I continue, jerking against him, “let—me—go!”

“Let you go?” Memnon’s eyes burn brighter, his expression hardening as his hair snaps about with his churning power. “Even if I wanted to—even if I didn’t have two thousand years of revenge to exact on you—your life is bound to mine, est amage. Not even death will part us. I will never let you go.”

Just when I think things can’t get any worse, Memnon reels me into him and kisses me.

The moment his lips meet mine, my magic comes alive.

It races along my skin and between my bones. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s consuming me.

Memnon’s magic joins in, threading through mine. I feel his power on me and in me, and I throb with the ecstasy of it.

It’s not even a choice to kiss him back—he’s a wildfire, and I’m getting swept up in it.

I kiss him like I’m starving for contact, like everything that was wrong has now been made right. The taste of him and the thrill of his power moving through me scorch my skin and steal my breath.

This is what I was searching for in the touch and taste of another. This is passion.

Memnon makes a possessive noise, slipping his hands into my hair, his staggering body enveloping me. His lips are bruising against mine; he kisses me with the ferocity of a starving man.

He tilts my jaw up to get a better angle.

It’s been too long since you’ve been in my arms, my queen.

I’m not sure Memnon intended for me to hear this—it sounds like a passing thought more than anything else—but the words whisper through my head all the same, and they break the spell.

What in the goddess’s good grace are you doing, Selene?

I move my hands to his lower abs and blast my power out, magically shoving him away.

“I thought we had established that I am not your anything.” Not his wife, not his queen, not his empress.

An angry smile graces his face. “Yes, you almost convinced me of that, didn’t you? But I have since had time to muse on it.” His tone changes, turning accusing. “I don’t know what witchcraft has destroyed your memory and produced those photos—”

“There was no witchcraft involved!” I say heatedly. We’re back to square one. I want to scream.

“—but my magic recognizes yours, and my bond is fucking singing through my blood as it hasn’t for the past two thousand years.”

We’re so close that our breath is intermingling.

“It’s why you can speak to me in Sarmatian when you’re pleased with me, and Latin when you’re angry,” Memnon continues, making me recall an earlier encounter in the spellcasting kitchen. I’d slipped into Latin with him then. “It’s why you can scream and fling your oaths and still kiss me as though we have done it a hundred upon a hundred times before—because we have.

“So you are wrong, little witch. You are many things to me. You are my queen, my empress, my wife. You are my Roxilana, the woman who awoke my magic and spoke to my mind before we ever met. You are my nemesis, who cursed me to endless sleep.”

Memnon’s hand cups my cheek. “And you are my Selene, my eternal soul mate, who woke me from it.”

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CHAPTER 24

Soul mate.

That terrifying, bewitching word echoes in my head.

I stagger back. “I—I am not your soul mate,” I say, even though my voice wavers.

I expect my words to be met with annoyance or frustration. This is, after all, a new version of the same old argument we’ve had.

Instead, his eyes have softened. “I saw your mind, little witch. I understand how you struggle and that much has slipped past your own awareness.”

He closes the space between us and places his palm over my heart.

“What are you doing?” I demand. I should rip his hand away. The ugly truth, however, is that I like his touch, even after all the shit he just pulled.

The gall of my body.

Instead of responding, Memnon stares deeply at me.

Empress…why do you think I’m able to speak to you like this?

I don’t breathe, my gaze locked with his.

Your heart knows the answer—as does your magic.

I feel that magic he speaks of rise now, twining with his.

Oh Goddess.

I shake my head.

No, no, no.

Memnon’s glittering brown eyes are intent on me, and a slow pleased smile spreads across his lips, like he can hear my own shocked thoughts.

We are soul mates, little witch, and we can speak down our bond…

I squeeze my eyes shut, grimacing because I can feel his words in me. They seep into my very blood, like a river reaching the ocean.

It felt like this every time he called to me—even when we were kissing only moments ago. I just assumed it was his brand of magic at work. Now, however…now his explanation makes a sick sort of sense.

Bonds are magical cords that connect two entities—like the one I share with Nero. Soul mates have them as well.

Could it be possible? Could Memnon truly be my soul mate, and could he speak to me through a bond we share?

No. I reject that thought before it can take further root.

Memnon’s eyes twinkle deviously, and it makes me wonder just how formidable this man truly is. I have seen his magic and his powerful body, and I have heard enough of his past to know he must’ve been a ruler, one who ruled a vast and expanding empire. Yet, even knowing all of that, I still find Memnon’s mind to be largely a mystery. And I think it’s that very mind of his that is the most terrible thing of all.

“You can talk to me through our bond too,” Memnon says softly, his hand still over my heart.

I pinch my eyes shut. “Stop saying that,” I whisper.

Bonds, mates—I don’t want to hear any of it.

“What, bond? Why would I?” he asks, sounding truly baffled. “It is the basis of everything, est amage. Your power, my power. All I know of my magic has come from it. Before I ever met you face-to-face, I heard your voice, right here.” Memnon uses his other hand to touch his own heart. “I spent countless nights whispering down it to you, and I spent my days letting it guide me across the world to find you.”

My skin tingles with his admission, and when I open my eyes, there’s a rawness and an intensity to his words that has me ensnared.

“So, enemies or not, Selene, please, ask me a question down our bond—project it to me.”

I want to deny him because I am in denial, but his plea gets under my skin, and a sick sort of curiosity wins out.

This shouldn’t work. It really shouldn’t.

I close my eyes once again and focus on that place just beneath Memnon’s warm palm; supposedly, it’s where soul mates are magically bonded. It’s terrifying that I do sense something there, now that I concentrate on it.

I’ve heard bonds described as cords and roads, but this feels more like a river flowing both into and out of me.

How did you get the scar on your face? I push the thought out with my power, forcing it down this magical river I sense.

“At fifteen, a man tried to skin me in battle,” Memnon says.

I open my eyes, both stricken and entranced not just by what he said but also by the fact he heard my voice in his head.

“You read my mind,” I accuse. I don’t want to believe the alternative. That we’re…bonded, our souls inextricably linked.

“I didn’t need to when you spoke so prettily down our bond.” Memnon stares at me with some emotion simmering in his eyes.

I hold his gaze for a second, then two, then three. My pulse is jackhammering, and I can hear the roar of blood in my ears. My knees are growing weak.

“I’m not your soul mate,” I insist.

Are you sure?

As if to emphasize his point, Memnon’s power pours into me from that magical river. For a moment, I close my eyes, and I feel the alluring lick of it right up against my heart. I press my palm to the place in question; it’s only once my hand comes to rest on Memnon’s that I realize he’s still touching me, and I’m starting to get confused about where he ends and I begin.

“No,” I whisper, the word coming out as a plea.

“Yes, Empress, you are,” he says, his voice gentling. He says it with a surety that sets me on edge.

I’ve spent far too much time fruitlessly convincing him of my own identity. Perhaps it’s time for Memnon to do the convincing.

I lift my chin. “Then tell me about who we were,” I dare him.

Memnon reaches out and strokes my cheek with his knuckles, this softness so at odds with the man I have come to know.

“I was a king, and you were my queen,” he says, his eyes turning soft.

“You don’t look like a king,” I challenge him. He’s too young, too scarred, too handsome, and too well-built.

He narrows his eyes at me but smiles. “Where I’m from, I do.” After a moment, he touches his hair. “Except for this,” he concedes. His hand moves to his smooth chin. “And this.”

As he speaks, my familiar prowls out from the shadows, silently joining my side when it’s far too late for me to need him. I spare the panther an annoyed glance.

“Sarmatian men wear their hair and beards long,” Memnon continues. He flashes me a conspiratorial look. “But you preferred me shorn like a sheep, and I admit, I greatly enjoyed the feel of your pussy against my bare face when I ate you—”

I cover his mouth before he can finish.

“Nope, I don’t want to hear about that,” I say, even as my sex dreams come back to me in all their lurid glory.

Beneath my palm, Memnon grins, and his eyes twinkle with mirth. Gone is the angry monster who stormed my room—

Kane.

Fuck, I need to get back to him.

Even as I think it, I’m not sure how to get out of this situation without drawing Memnon right back to the lycan and further hurting the lycanthrope.

The sorcerer removes my hand from his mouth. “Ask me more, est amage. Let me prove our past to you.”

At least he now seems to believe that whatever past existed for him, I have no memory of it.

I search his gaze, part of me desperate to check on Kane and part of me eager to hear more about this man.

“What land did you and Roxilana rule?” I finally say, edging backward.

“Sarmatia.” That word carries a longing with it. “We were an empire of horse lords and warriors, and we moved along the Pontic steppe, with the migrations of herd animals. Though I overthrew the king of Bosporus so I could settle you in a palace by the sea. The constant traveling was hard on you.”

“I’ve never heard of any of that,” I say. I don’t dare mention that my own magic might’ve expunged the information.

Memnon sighs. “Yes, well, much of the recorded history at the time was written by Romans.” He curls his upper lip as he speaks. “To them, we were nameless barbarians. We existed in their nightmares and on the fringes of their world but not in their self-aggrandizing histories. But we did exist.”

“Uh-huh,” I say, edging back some more. “Just like my childhood existed.”

Memnon narrows his eyes, no doubt understanding what I’m saying perfectly: I’ll believe your word as soon as you believe mine.

Before either of us can say more, I hear a broken voice call out, “Selene!”

Kane.

Dear Goddess, he’s alive. Relief courses through my veins.

I take several steps back, the need to get back to the lycanthrope pressing upon me.

Memnon’s expression grows cold, so cold—his eyes most of all.

He nods in the direction of Kane, and I can feel the waves of menace pouring off him. “Est amage, it is taking everything in me not to kill that wolf where he lies. You touch that boy, and he dies. Slowly. The same threat extends to anyone who thinks to pursue you, little witch. Do you understand?”

I lift my chin, refusing to be cowed by this man. “I’ll do as I fucking please. This isn’t the Dark Ages, Memnon.”

The sorcerer’s eyes burn a little as his power resurfaces with his rising agitation.

“No, this isn’t,” he agrees.

I have to hide my surprise that he understood the reference.

“But I am no modern man,” he continues. “I have killed for far less, and I will happily do so again, where you are concerned.”

I scowl at him, my magic twisting and snapping out of me with my irritation.

His eyes drop to my mouth, like he’s actually considering kissing me.

“I’ll be seeing you again soon, Empress,” he says, backing away from me. “Until then, sweet dreams.”

Memnon turns on his heel and walks away into the dark forest, his magic billowing around him.

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