Ascension (2 page)

What could be so bad that she wasn’t asking her precious coven for help and was instead looking him up after six long years?

Was it just the demons that had her scared or was there more to this than she was telling him? Witches and demons got on like a house on fire but usually they kept well clear of each other, sticking to their own world. It was unusual for a demon to go after a witch, but he couldn’t deny that the two kids earlier had been looking for Lealandra.

And now she was asking him for help.

What reason could demons have for going after her?

Taig looked deep into her eyes, focusing on them as he tried to get a hold on her feelings. There was anger in her now, aimed at him, but the fear was still there too. It echoed in the unsteady beat of her heart and danced in the depths of her eyes. She was in trouble, big enough that she had sought him out even when she knew that he would be pissed off at her and that he would demand a high price for services rendered. Either she was desperate or she truly believed that he was her best choice.

Or maybe she just wanted to see him again and this was the perfect excuse for her to waltz back into his life.

Still, his ineffable charm and attractiveness aside, parts of it didn’t make sense. Lealandra was powerful enough to take care of a couple of weak lower demons and her bastard Counter-Balance and dear coven should have been able to protect her if she couldn’t fight them for some reason. Taig had never met them, but the coven was probably strong enough to take on a demon of his strength. Two weaklings would be nothing to them. Like swatting flies.

And why was she here anyway? Alone too. Her Counter-Balance would have a tantrum of galactic proportions if he knew that Lealandra had come to her ex-lover for help.

In fact, none of it made sense.

Taig’s head ached from trying to figure it out. It was just like her to send his mind in ten directions at once. There was only one way to find out what the hell had Lealandra walking back into his life. He never had been backwards about being forwards, after all. It was one of the qualities that Lealandra had liked about him.

“Why do you need me?” Taig sensed the deep spike in her feelings, the rise in her desire that struck him hard and sent a jolt to his groin, reigniting his own hunger.

Her eyes widened and her cheeks coloured.

He hadn’t considered the possibility of a second meaning to his words but now he was. His suspicions had been right. He wasn’t the only one the kiss had affected. He wasn’t the only one who felt this need burning deep within.

His eyes narrowed on hers in both a challenge and a command. He was damned if he was going to let her get away without answering, and damned if he was going to let her walk out on him again.

“Tell me.”

L
ealandra slumped onto the cracked leather seat and placed her hands between her knees. She stared at them. They were pale against her black skirt and she could see the veins marking the back of them in the low light of the grotty bar. Her gaze drifted to Taig’s left wrist.

The rolled up sleeves of his black shirt revealed thick toned forearms that stated he could snap a man’s neck with ease if he felt like it. She had witnessed proof of that declaration more than once. His strength and his ability to dispatch demons without breaking a sweat was incredible and exactly what she needed right now.

Numerous thin silvery streaks marked a haphazard path up the inside of his forearm, closely packed together at his wrist and growing more distant towards his elbow. A rich metallic scent filled her mouth when she remembered the taste of his flesh. She trembled inside, hunger stirring in the depths of her as her power cried out for blood. Her hands shook.

Six dizzy months of passion with him collided into one pounding thought in her mind. She needed him still. It wasn’t just about the blood that he offered so freely but also the mindless desire that consumed her each time she saw him, each time they touched. She had craved that for six long years, an age in which her Counter-Balance had forced her to keep away from what she needed most. He never had understood her needs, and his ignorance of her hunger and denial of its existence had cost him dearly.

“Charlie is dead.” No trace of emotion touched her voice. She had mourned the loss of her Counter-Balance for as long as her heart would allow. Now it demanded that she protect herself. “I thought they were after him. I was wrong.”

“They want you.” Taig leaned further back into the seat and her gaze leapt to his body.

Her pulse trebled over his limp, ready for anything pose. Memories of him naked and hard sprung to the front of her mind and her fingers itched to retrace the paths they had taken across the delicious muscles of his broad torso, to tease his pebbled nipples and rake down his back as he filled her body with his own. Her tongue wanted to taste his flesh again and lick every inch of him. A shudder of pleasure wracked her when her eyes found his arm and the marks there. Marks for her. Cuts made in the wildest throes of passion when she craved his blood the most—when she craved him like a drug and needed him more than air.

Her heart fluttered in her throat, driven to a wild beat by her passionate thoughts.

Lealandra swallowed it back down. She was here on business, not because she needed a fix of Taig. She was over him now. Those first few months without him had been Hell but she had made it through.

It was over.

She faltered when her eyes met his black ones, their endless depths entrancing her and warming her right down to the marrow of her bones. A hot but empty feeling filled her chest and she resisted the temptation to touch the spot over her heart and rub it in the hope that the feeling would go away. It was pointless. She had never realised it before tonight, before seeing him again, but she had missed him and she had been lonely without him. A part of her had been missing. Her heart. Taig held it in his grasp, clutching it so tightly that it hurt, nails poised to puncture it. One wrong move and her heart would break all over again. It was a fool’s game to come to him and risk so much pain but he was the only one who could protect her now, and as much as she would hate herself for it, she might even stoop to pay the price he was asking.

“I don’t know why,” she confessed with a nonchalant shrug that drew a quirked eyebrow from him. It was redundant to try to cover the desire that crept through her whenever she looked at him but she had to keep a lid on her emotions so he wouldn’t see how vulnerable she was and take advantage. She had to at least try to get him to take her offer of payment and not insist on his.

Taig reached across to the full shot glass beside the one he had emptied not minutes ago. His eyes closed when he tilted his head back and swallowed the golden liquid. The glide of his Adam’s apple made her swallow along with him. Her tongue pressed against her teeth, eager to trace patterns on his neck and to feel him biting her throat so hard he would leave a mark.

This wasn’t going well.

One midnight-black eye opened and slid to her. The corner of his deliciously curved lips tugged into a smile. She cursed his demonic senses and how flustered he was getting her. This wasn’t about sex. This was about her life. The quicker her libido got the message, the better. Still the thoughts of their naked bodies entwined and writhing filled her mind. They were impossible to shut out. Just being near him had been bringing everything back. When she had kissed him to disguise herself from the men, it had opened the floodgates of pent up desire and need, and left her aching for his touch.

“They killed Charlie to weaken you.”

Those six words sent fear into her heart, each an icy spear that froze her to her soul. She hadn’t considered that they had meant to kill Charlie too.

“I thought they’d messed up and got the wrong person. It was dark in the apartment and the shot that killed him came through the window. They could only have seen our silhouettes where we were sitting on the couch.” Her hands shook for a different reason. Panic erased any desire to touch Taig. Was he right? Charlie had been far less powerful than she was and the coven had chosen him as her Counter-Balance for that reason. He had been perfect for the job. His magic had craved the strength of hers. It had absorbed some of her power, making it easier for her to keep control. Without him, she was in danger of her magic consuming her. It was building inside her, growing stronger with every passing second. Soon it would push for control and, if that happened, it would force her to seek out what it wanted most. She shuddered.

Lealandra had seen witches turn. Her own mother had lost herself to her magic. If her father hadn’t been so powerful, none of them would have survived. Who would bring her back if the magic took control? No one at the coven was strong enough. Not even Gregori, the New York City coven’s leader. If the magic seized her, it would take all of them to join forces in order to save her.

Her eyes wandered to Taig. Would he help her? Could he help her? She studied his handsome face, watching the flickers of his thoughts cross his pitch-black eyes. He was as beautiful as she remembered—the kind of gorgeous that could win him any girl he wanted, even her if he tried hard and turned on the charm. She wasn’t strong enough to hold out against him forever. Something would give and it was likely to be her heart. He rubbed a thumb down the line of his defined jaw and then paused, his expression turning pensive.

“The curtains were closed?” he said and she found herself savouring the sound of his deep voice. She had never forgotten how he sounded, with his mixed accent, not quite American but not quite another unknown country either, or some of the things he had husked in her ear during making love with her.

Lealandra nodded. “They’re thin enough to see through when all the lights are on, but we only had the table lamp lit. They could have only seen our heads above the couch back. When they shot Charlie his—”

The memory of seeing her partner’s head blown wide open stole her voice. Her throat closed and she struggled to breathe, clinging to the last shred of calm inside her. There had been so much blood. It had covered the apartment. It had covered her. One second Charlie had been there, the next she had been sitting beside a corpse, still talking as though nothing had happened. It had taken almost a full minute for her senses to fall into order and make her realise that he was dead.

Taig’s large hand covered hers and she jumped and looked up at him through her lashes. The concern in his eyes made the tears in hers tremble on the brink of falling. She placed her other hand over his, completing the tangle, and closed her eyes. Focusing on their hands, she unleashed a fraction of her magic, giving it more rein but still keeping it under tight control, and drew strength from him. His power seeped into her hands and crept up her arms until it suffused her entire body, sending a heady rush through her.

“You’re hungry,” Taig murmured in a voice laden with sensuality.

No denial left her lips. Right now, she was more than hungry. Kissing him had been a mistake. It had given her a taste and made her remember how things had been, and how he had made her feel. Her magic had latched onto those memories and it didn’t want to let go. She held his hand tighter and stole everything that she could from him in an effort to calm herself and restore the balance of power inside her. Taig had once provided her with a substitute before she had found her balance in Charlie.

His own power.

His blood.

“It’ll cost you extra,” Taig said and she realised she was staring at the scars on his forearm.

She took her hands away from his, unwilling to pay the price he was asking for his help, let alone the price he would place on his blood now. What he had once given to her freely would now cost her everything. He would make her pay dearly for it just to spite her, and part of her couldn’t blame him for doing such a thing. She could understand why he would think that she deserved such punishment.

He gently brushed her long dark hair behind her ear, his touch comforting and speaking volumes, telling her that the desire she felt wasn’t one-sided. He was still attracted to her.

“He didn’t look after you properly.”

Lealandra didn’t have an answer to that accusation. Charlie had neglected her need for sustenance through blood. He had thought he had been doing the right thing, when in reality it had been nothing short of torture.

“He said I didn’t need it,” she said in a small voice and then straightened and found her strength. She didn’t want Taig to see her weak. It had been her decision to leave him and go with Charlie and the coven. She had to accept that and the things that had happened. She had to take responsibility and stick to her decision, even when she now felt it had been a terrible mistake. “You know he didn’t believe in that kind of thing. None at the coven do.”

Taig laughed and toyed with the two empty shot glasses. “He was more of a fool than I thought.”

His laughter died in an instant when his eyes locked with hers. Their fathomless black depths sparkled with intensity. Her breath shortened and her palms sweated with anticipation. She subconsciously leaned forwards, eager to be close to him, desiring to feel his hands on her again and have him continue to look at her with such need and hunger.

“I should never have let him take you.” His expression darkened with his frown, his lips compressing into a thin line that conveyed the anger flowing from him and through her.

Lealandra got the better of herself and picked up her own shot of whisky and downed it. The fire as it slipped down into her stomach did nothing to dampen her desire or boost her courage.

“You didn’t have a choice.” She leaned back into the seat with a false smile that covered her fear and her feelings.

He shifted forward and stared into the far reaches of her soul. His eyes lightened. The black melted to reveal a red inferno that flickered and licked around the wide chasm of his pupils. She drew a deep steadying breath, refusing to let him fluster her.

“Believe me,” Taig said on a sneer, “if I’d decided not to let him take you, he wouldn’t have. He would’ve died a lot sooner.”