Текст книги "Bespelled"

Автор книги: Laura Thalassa

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

CHAPTER 43

I drive Memnon’s car back to his house while the sorcerer takes his motorcycle. The sky has been heavy with the scent of rain this whole evening, but it’s only once I’m on the winding mountain roads that the heavens open up.

I flick on the wipers and try to force my focus to stay purely on the road.

Unfortunately, it keeps drifting.

“Did she tell the truth?” Vincent had asked.

“As she knows it, yes,” my mate had replied.

What had he meant by that?

Memnon?

I shouldn’t be bothering him. Not when he’s traveling these same slickened roads I am. On a motorcycle. With no helmet.

Yes, est amage?

Forget it, I say.

Well, I cannot forget it now, after I’ve been teased. What is it?

I adjust my grip on the wheel. Fuck it.

Tell me something you don’t want me to know.

I ignore the twinge of guilt in my stomach that comes with the command and brace for some horrible truth.

I think about marrying you all the godsdamned time, Memnon says down our bond. I think of ways to work around our arrangement just to make it official sooner. And once you’re my wife, I plan on convincing you with gifts and food and mind-blowing sex to stay with me, in our house, forever.

I rear back in my seat. That…wasn’t the confession I was expecting. I assumed he’d tell me some scheme he’d been keeping from me, not serve me his heart on a platter. I’d almost forgotten the unbreakable oath I made to him. But Memnon hasn’t.

You didn’t want me to know that?

No, he says. He doesn’t explain himself further.

When I pull up the long driveway to Memnon’s secluded house, he’s already there, standing out in the elements, waiting for me to get to him. The rain mats his hair to his face. Distractedly, he runs a hand through the wet locks, and the sight sets my whole body on fire.

I look at him, and finally, I see him, really see him. He’s no longer just some strange menace come to haunt me. He’s my soul mate, the man whose mind reached out to mine two thousand years ago when we were both children in the ancient world. He has been my enemy recently, but he has always been my partner.

The truth of it hits me like a blow to the chest, and it’s as though I can breathe again for the first time since he reentered my life.

I turn off his car and step out of it.

My gaze moves from him to his motorcycle, then back.

I shut the car door and round the vehicle. “You’re never going to drive that motorcycle again without a helmet,” I say.

I see him shiver at the command in my voice.

He twists his lips into a smirk. “And why is that?’

He wants the answer. He’s a wolf who’s scented the truth.

I stop walking, and the two of us stare each other down.

“Because I care about you. Because you’re my soul mate,” I say. I’ve always known it, but now I accept it. I accept him. The two of us are connected by an invisible cord of magic. It mingles, his darkness tingeing my power, my light brightening his. “And I claim you as mine.”

My power flows through me, yearning for one thing, and he’s standing in front of me.

Memnon looks at me like I contain the whole world beneath my skin. “Selene.” His eyes begin to glow, and thick plumes of his magic flow out of him.

I don’t know which one of us moves first, only that we come together as the rain batters down on us.

Memnon’s mouth finds mine, even as his eyes still burn like embers. The press of his mouth is desperate, insistent, as though he might coax more truth from it.

I thread my fingers through his hair, reveling in the strange feel of his floating locks.

This is our deepest truth. That time and place can change—even life experiences can change—but we will still come together.

Memnon closes his eyes as though basking in this moment. “How I have longed to hear those words.” He presses his forehead to mine. When he opens his eyes, they are that beautiful, complicated brown once more. “I am yours, dear soul mate,” he breathes. “Always yours.”

He kisses me again, and there’s a heady rush.

The leather jacket he wears hangs open, and I push it off his shoulders. It hits the driveway with a wet plop.

I need to get closer to him. Need to feel his very essence on me and in me. There’s a hurried, almost instinctual rush to this, and I don’t know if it’s driven by my magic or my repressed feelings.

Perhaps it’s a bit of both, because when I reach the hem of his shirt, my magic has beaten me to it. It tugs the garment up, breaking our kiss. Memnon grins devilishly as my power pulls it over his head and casts it aside. Then the sorcerer’s hands and his mouth are back on mine.

His chest is deliciously warm, and I step closer into his embrace, savoring his heat and closeness.

He picks me up, wrapping my legs around his hips. My hands are still in his wavy hair, and my magic is moving about us. It’s at my back, and though I can’t see it, I sense it swarming around Memnon’s hands. It tugs at my shirt, then⁠—

Riiiip. My power tears the back of my shirt in two. It falls in tatters between us, and I pull away enough to shrug out of it. Memnon uses the moment to cast a silent spell of his own, his magic taking the weight of my body to free his hands.

The sorcerer reaches out, wiping the wet locks of my hair out of my face.

“Hello again, my love. It has been an age.” We look at each other, our torsos bare save my bra and his tattoos, and the two of us laugh.

In that moment, there’s no division between who I was as Roxilana and who I am as Selene; the past and the present are here, all at once.

“It worked,” I say softly. My fingertips graze his face and the puckered skin where his scar is. “I never truly lost you.”

He shakes his head. “No, my queen, this is just the beginning.”

Memnon carries me inside. We’re dripping from head to foot, and the sorcerer’s shoes are making hilarious squishing noises until one of our spells removes them from his feet. The rest of our clothing gets peeled and ripped away by our power as we move through his foyer, then down the hall to his bedroom, each discarded garment hitting the ground with a wet slap until the two of us are naked.

I shiver in Memnon’s arms, my legs locked around his waist. I can feel his erection brush against the curve of my ass.

“I don’t need a bed for this,” I say.

“I do,” Memnon says with too much fervency. He leans into me and nips my lower lip. “There will be time to make love like the heathens we are. But tonight, I want to savor your skin and the look in your eyes. They hold my whole universe in them.”

I swallow, growing serious. We’ve done this many times in the past week, but I’ve always, always had my guard up. But when I woke this morning, fresh from an evening of hell, all those guards I put in place to keep Memnon out were ripped apart.

The sorcerer’s eyes drop to my throat, and he presses a gentle kiss there. “My fierce queen, who battled death to save me, who gave up much so that we could be here in this moment.” His gaze flicks over me, and I think he sees that I’m ready for the slow sex he’s been promising and all the intimate connection that comes with it. “My exquisite mate, who has been exceedingly patient with me.”

He lays me out on the bed, then follows me onto it, fitting himself into the space between my thighs.

Despite the patter of rain, the world has grown very, very quiet.

“Let me show you how I love you,” he breathes.

He grabs my legs, sliding his hands down my thighs like he can’t help but touch me before spreading them obscenely apart.

Memnon dips his mouth to my core. “I promised you I’d feast on your pussy,” he says against my sensitive skin, and I moan at the way even that casual brush of his lips sets my nerve endings on fire.

He kisses my pussy then, his tongue slipping inside me briefly.

I arch off the bed, nearly coming undone from that alone.

Memnon groans, leaning his forehead on my pubic bone. “You’re dripping.”

I’m breathing heavy, though he’s hardly touched me. I run my hands over his shoulders, reveling in the roll of his muscles.

Memnon dips his head to press a soft kiss to my clit. I nearly yelp at the sensation.

“I hate to break my earlier promise,” he says, “but—” Another roughened kiss to my clit that sets me alight. Memnon lifts his head, and our eyes meet across the expanse of my body. “I did not imagine you would look at me tonight the way you have been or say the things you’ve said.”

With that, he drags himself up the length of my body until his hips are cradled against mine.

My hands glide up the rippling muscles of his abs, then circle around to his back.

The sorcerer stares down at me. “Don’t look away,” he says. It’s equal parts command and plea.

“Don’t you look away,” I say, turning the command back on him.

“I won’t,” he vows.

He reaches between us, adjusting himself until his cock is right at my entrance, and I’m about to glance down at where we touch⁠—

“Eyes on me,” he reminds me.

I inhale shakily.

Watching my every movement, Memnon shifts his hips and begins to sink inside me.

I suck in a breath as the head of his cock stretches me. The sensation is intoxicating, but I’m still caught up in his face. That face I first saw in Rome all those years ago. It’s grown hardened and more rugged since then, but for the first time in this life, I realize it’s not just a handsome face, it’s a beloved one.

That makes my heart pound all the faster.

Once he’s fully seated in me, he goes still again, and the two of us remain locked in each other’s gaze.

“You can look away now,” I say softly. I don’t honestly know if my orders hold any power over him.

“I don’t want to,” he admits.

I don’t want to either.

“Please, est amage. Explore me,” he coaxes softly.

I’ll have to look away, I admit down our bond.

Memnon runs the tip of his nose down the bridge of my own.

“I don’t mind,” he breathes against my lips as his cock moves in and out of me. My eyes flutter a little at the sensation, but his thrusts are slow, measured.

My palms skim up his back, and I feel goose bumps rise along Memnon’s skin in their wake. I pause when I touch the seam of an old scar several inches from his armpit. A barbed arrow had embedded itself here, though it happened before we met. This was the day when Memnon’s voice first called out down our bond.

My hands continue up until my fingers graze the curling ends of his black hair. I play with a few strands of it. Then, because I cannot help myself, my touch migrates to his scar, tracing it up the side of his face and over to his eye, remembering when I first touched it⁠—

“This looks like it hurt.”

His eyes are closed. “It did, but I am grateful for it.”

“Why is that?” I ask. I cannot imagine being grateful for something so heinous.

“Because it made you stroke my skin.”

Down my hands move, to the column of his throat, where the inked image of my panther rests. Then lower, to the pectoral tattoo of a dragon—his family crest. His mother had the same tattoo, as did his sister.

As did I, once, long ago.

I feel his whole body shudder as I run my hands over it, and the sensation somehow heightens the drag of his cock inside me. I ache a little at the absence of my own tattoos and scars. They didn’t make the journey through time with me.

My hands move lower, over Memnon’s abdomen before they seem to drift of their own accord back to his face.

I hold that face, the two of us watching each other.

“I love you, my Roxi, my Selene,” Memnon murmurs.

Deeper he drives himself, though his speed is punishingly slow.

I want to beg him to go faster, but even that would be an order wrapped in a plea, and I’m afraid my order will work—and equally afraid it won’t.

The corner of his lip curls as he studies me, and his eyes blaze with intensity. “Your face says what your lips won’t.”

I jerk a little. Did he just hear my thoughts?

But then he follows with, “I will go faster—if you command it.”

My heart is now pounding hard for an entirely different reason. I tense, accidentally clenching around his cock.

Memnon hisses out a breath, then laughs, his thrusts still languishingly slow. “You grip me so well, little witch.” He bows his head to take one of my breasts in his mouth, teasing my nipple between his teeth. He releases it to lave the other. I never thought my breasts were particularly sensitive, but this man has me seeing the goddess with his tongue.

I moan, grinding myself a little harder against him.

“I love you,” he breathes against my skin. “I love you, I love you, I love you. A thousand lives wouldn’t be enough with you, but I have to content myself with just this one.”

He pulls away from my breasts to gaze down at me. And once again, we’re back to staring at each other.

“Command me, my queen. I am yours,” he says as he thrusts into me.

I stroke his cheek. “You are mine, est xsaya, but I won’t command you.” Not right now at least.

He smiles at me, the expression softening his entire face but most especially his eyes.

Fine, do not command me. I shall simply anticipate your desires.

He leans in and kisses me, his strokes quickening, the exquisite friction setting my whole body on fire.

I gasp, my fingers moving to his back, where they dig in.

He’s pumping into me, all his massive muscles rippling and bunching with the action.

I writhe beneath him, caught in his relentless pace. If before he was able to keep his strokes slow and shallow enough to tantalize me, now his pace is almost too much. He’s too much.

I am going to give you the world, Empress, he vows, his voice lethally soft in my mind. It’s already begun.

I don’t know if Memnon meant for me to hear those words, so I ignore them as my hips meet his, my body hurtling toward an orgasm.

My gaze drifts down to where I can see the lower part of his thick shaft sliding in and out⁠—

“Eyes on me.”

My gaze snaps to his.

There’s no magic in this moment save for the deeper, richer power that links the two of us together.

I stare at him. My past, my present.

My future.

His eyes blaze.

I think he heard that.

Rather than being mortified at the thought, it along with his rough, merciless thrusts send me right over the edge.

My lips part as my orgasm shatters through me.

Memnon’s pupils blow wide. “Gods, I feel you…” His fingers dig into my hair, then he’s spilling into me, his gaze pinned to mine.

His climax echoes down our bond, stretching out my own. And still, the two of us continue gazing at each other, as though we truly haven’t seen each other for two thousand years.

We only break eye contact once Memnon slips out of me and gathers me in his arms. Tonight, even this feels sacred. I don’t know what’s happening to my heart, but I’m not nearly as terrified as I should be.

Memnon’s hand drifts to my stomach, his fingers idly stroking the skin there. For some reason, this touch—his hand on my stomach—will forever harken back to the child we briefly had, then lost with everything else.

“I am sorry,” he begins.

“What?” I say, bewildered.

“I will never stop apologizing to you. My faith in you faltered when I woke in that tomb, and my faithlessness drove me to hurt you in ways I cannot take back. So I will apologize to you, my soul mate—my dearest and best friend. Again and again and again. Until you are sick of it. Because even once this bond between us breaks, my debt to you will not be paid. It won’t be until I draw my last breath and you and I meet the gods who made us.”

I place my hand on his cheek and lift my head to take him in. From the bond, I feel his yearning. I think I know what he wants.

“Are you wondering if the forged bond is still there?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he nods.

Only one way to find out.

“Tell me another secret you don’t want me to know.”

“I picked out a ring,” Memnon admits. He blinks, then– “Fuck, I really wasn’t planning on sharing that.”

He has an engagement ring. My heart is beating loudly. Memnon really is ready to marry me at the first opportunity.

I see a flash of dismay cross his features.

“You are mine,” I whisper, grasping his hand and threading my fingers through his.

He closes his eyes as a shiver courses through him. When he opens them again, they briefly glow with his magic.

“You are mine,” I repeat. “You are mine. My eternal mate.” It is not a declaration of love, but it doesn’t matter.

He smiles then, so big it threatens to split his face in two.

I grin back at him, feeling light, giddy. This damn giddiness.

Memnon’s emotions are pouring down our bond. I’ve made the man incandescently happy.

Memnon leans forward and kisses me. Against my lips, he whispers, “I am yours, forever.”

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CHAPTER 44

I assumed that spending my days holed up with Memnon would make the time move at an unnervingly slow rate, but between strategizing and reacquainting myself with Memnon, the days fall away one by one.

I continue sending my parents daily texts letting them know I’m alive, I fill Sybil in on my absence at Henbane, and I let myself actually enjoy a period of time when no one is actively trying to harm me or my familiar.

Well, perhaps they are actively trying, but Memnon has successfully warded this place against our enemies.

The news still focuses heavily on the killings in San Francisco and the mass murderer on the loose, and there is precious little about the Fortuna empire, aside from a brief mention of a donation the Fortunas made to the Bay Area Politia.

Whatever whistleblowing might be happening by the supernaturals freed from Juliana’s influence, none of it is being broadcast. There’s also no mention of Juliana herself or her untimely death—there isn’t even a simple obituary. It’s as though her death never happened.

I cannot know the Fortunas’ reasons for such secrecy, but it’s clear that whatever they are, they place them in higher regard than publicizing their grief.

Halfway through the week, Kane sends me a series of texts:

Fourteen shifters have forced bonds. They’ve been quarantined away from the pack.

From what we know, the Politia has gathered a few testimonies from supernaturals who were bonded to Juliana, but they don’t have enough evidence to make arrests, nor do they have enough probable cause to involve themselves in the upcoming auction.

I hadn’t been holding out for the Politia’s help, but it’s still a punch to the gut to hear how they’ll do nothing. The two final texts from Kane, however, make up for it.

The rest of my pack voted, and the decision was unanimous.

We’ll be there.

Relief floods my system. Memnon and I will have help. I don’t focus too much on the fact that Kane doesn’t suggest we meet up and exchange notes, nor do he or his pack seem interested in joint strategizing. Their help will be entirely separate from us.

It’s better than nothing.

During the week, I resume using my notebooks, and it’s like reacquainting myself with an old friend. Though I no longer need my journals to assist my memory, I now fill the pages with notes and pictures of the Equinox Building, the murdered victims, the auction event, and finally, the Fortuna family themselves.

When the day of the new moon rolls around, I find myself lounging in Memnon’s bed and studying these photos of the family behind this whole mess.

There’s Juliana, with her dark brown hair and doe eyes. On the next page is her sister, Sophia. Her hair is a little lighter than her sister’s, and her face is a little broader. I haven’t met her, but from what I’ve heard, she’s just as awful as Juliana.

On the following page is Leonard, the brother of the two sorceresses. He’s handsome, but there’s a cruel edge to his expression that makes my gut churn with unease. I haven’t met him either, but in my bones, I sense he’s the worst, and he’s the one most closely involved with the murders.

Well, him and his father. Luca Fortuna has black hair that has gone gray at his temples, and honestly, the guy has really great skin. How is this guy sixty? Is this some drinking-the-blood-of-innocents shit?

I stare at the family. Aside from Leonard’s slightly cruel edge, they look like normal people. I hate that. I hate that evil can look entirely benign. I wonder what their worries are, what their cares are. I wonder how they love and how they mourn the death of Juliana. I wonder what that looks like for them. How they grieve. I assumed it would be showy, but so far, it seems as though they’re trying to cover it up.

My phone rings, interrupting my thoughts. I pull it out, ready to ignore it, when I see the caller. Kane.

“Hello—”

“Selene.” The voice that sobs out my name isn’t Kane’s. It’s⁠—

“Sybil?” I straighten up in the bed. “Are you okay? What are you doing with Kane’s phone?”

A curl of Memnon’s magic floats in from the kitchen, where he’s been cooking something since he left my side.

“It’s a long story,” she says hoarsely. “And yes, I’m fine—more than fine, finally. I’m—I’m—Sawyer bit me.”

“What?” I scramble out of the bed, my notebook entirely forgotten. I don’t know where I’m going or what I intend to do, but I’m ready to jump to her aid the moment she gives the word.

At my tone, more of Memnon’s power floats over to me, the indigo magic wrapping protectively around my torso.

I hear the sorcerer’s strides as he heads to the room, clearly ready to check on me.

Do I congratulate her? Do I gauge her mood? Is this a happy occasion, or⁠—

She begins to cry.

“I will kill him,” I say as Memnon enters the room.

“Whose life are we ending?” the sorcerer says. He crosses the room and grabs his dagger and sheath from the bedside table, clearly ready to charge into battle with me.

“No, you won’t,” Sybil says. “Sawyer saved my life—and he might’ve saved yours as well,” my friend says.

I go still at her words, a chill skittering up my back.

“Listen to me, Selene. There’s a crime family, the Fortunas.” Sybil gasps. “Fuck, I really can speak on it.”

Goosebumps break out across my skin hearing the Fortuna name cross her lips.

She starts crying again, and she’s trying to talk through her sobs. “I can’t…the bite…broke it…”

My hand is trembling, and I feel like I’m squeezing the life out of my phone. “Sybil, please, breathe. I promise, I’m listening.”

“Sawyer bit me, and it broke a bond that had been forced on me.”

My lungs aren’t working. I can’t seem to breathe.

“Where are you right now?” I ask.

“I’m in the Everwoods. I needed a little privacy to talk—I haven’t been able to tell Sawyer about this.” She hesitates. “This call can’t be long. Now that I’m bonded, Sawyer…he’s not really letting me out of his sight…” Her voice changes, and she sounds less traumatized and more exhilarated. Like she might enjoy that possessiveness. “I barely managed to convince him to let me use Kane’s phone instead of his—that’s how intense the bond is. But I didn’t think you would answer a stranger’s number.”

She’s right. I probably would’ve ignored the call and never heard any of this. I shift my weight from foot to foot.

Congratulations, I mean to tell her. It seems like that word should fit somewhere into this conversation. After all, Sybil bonded herself to someone she cares about, and in the process, she freed herself from a terrible fate.

“Please get out of those woods and go back to Sawyer and the rest of the pack,” I beg her instead. My gut is churning.

Memnon glances at me as he arms himself. I can tell he’s holding back a lot of questions. His magic has almost entirely encapsulated my body, like it can shield me from the horrors my best friend is telling me.

“Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “Okay. But, Selene, S-Sophia—the fucking monster who bonded me—she has been looking for you and Memnon since we last spoke.” She begins sobbing again. “I had to break my phone to avoid her calls, but now I’m worried that she’s—she’s⁠—”

I think I might be ill. “You think she’s after you too,” I say.

I can feel my own tears slipping down my cheek.

“Yes,” she whispers. “She knows you’re my best friend.”

Fuck.

“Please, ward yourself and get back to the pack, immediately.”

“I will,” she promises. “But I wanted to let you know that you might not see me for a while. Between this and learning how to shift…I don’t know how long it will be,” she confesses. “I’m going to have to tell Sawyer everything—” Her voice breaks off, and I can sense my best friend’s emotions crumbling. “I’m so sorry for being an absent friend lately,” she says hoarsely. “And a shitty one. There are so many things I tried to shield you from before now. Just please know I tried my b⁠—”

BOOM!

My friend screams over the line.

“Sybil!” I shriek.

What is going on? Memnon says down our bond, his expression concerned.

I’m openly weeping now. My best friend put herself in danger to protect me.

“Sybil!” I cry out again. “Please answer me.”

I can hear voices and scuffling.

“Did you really think you could hide from me?” a woman says.

In the background, Sybil screams.

“And look who it is.” The voice grows louder. “Hello, Selene. Sybil has told me a lot about you.”

Fear seizes up my windpipes.

I’ve been so preoccupied with the possibility that the bad guys were coming for me that it didn’t cross my mind that they might instead come for Sybil.

Memnon, the Fortunas have my best friend. My horror is drowning out every other thought.

I put the phone on speaker and lay it on the bed while Memnon comes closer.

“Sophia?”

“Listen, I’m going to be direct:” Sophia, presumably, says, “Sybil is going to die tonight.”

In the background, I hear Sybil scream again.

My magic rushes out of me, uselessly spreading across the room.

“Unless, of course, you come retrieve her,” she says.

“What do you⁠—”

“Come to the lobby of the Equinox at ten till midnight,” she interjects. “Not earlier, not later.”

I can hear the staccato beat of my heart. “Promise you won’t harm her.”

“Hmm…no. See you at midnight.”

Click.

The line goes dead.

An angry scream forces its way up my throat. Before I can release it, Memnon is there.

He settles his hands on my shoulders. His indigo magic surrounds us on all sides.

“Look at me,” he says.

I raise my face to take him in. His eyes are eager, and his expression is resolute.

“We have gone to battle before, est amage.” He gives my shoulders a squeeze. “We have faced worse foes. We will save her. I vow this to you.”

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