Entwined Strangers (BBW Shifter Romance): Sorcery & Shifters Book 4 (6 page)

The funny thing is that—and he probably doesn’t even realize this yet—he likes the fact I’ve seen his soft underbelly. Not just that, but I don’t think any less of him for it. I’ve been privy to the real person behind the alpha male façade that everybody else sees, including Sylvia.

I can see from the look on his face that Trent already regrets saying what he did. Still, I won’t give him the chance to take it back. I stand up and strut away before Trent has time to respond. Better to keep him on the hook.

“Don’t leave this room,” I tell him. “There’s no telling what sort of mundane traps Kumi set upstairs while I was gone. I’ll check it out and make a call to Candice and Saffron from that magically linked phone I was telling you about.”

I cancel the Hide from Magic spell. There is a permanent ward on my brownstone that does the exact same thing.

I stroll out of the room knowing full well that Kumi didn’t set up any mundane traps inside the house. I just said that to keep Trent from wandering around.

The protective spell adjusts to include anybody else who enters the brownstone at the same time as me. Therefore Piper and Trent are already grandfathered in because of my presence here. It’s a security loop in the magical ward, but a small one.

I make my way upstairs to the bedroom, where I keep a spare phone beside my bed. It’s weird being home again after nine months. The place is immaculate and all the windows are still shuttered. I would have thought that Kumi would have opened them while she was saying here. I guess not. It’s definitely for the best right now.

My spare phone is right where I left it.

I call Candice and Saffron at the same time. This should be an interesting conversation. They pick up right away.

“It’s me,” I manage to get out first.

“Jessica! Where are you?” Candice practically yells.

“I’m in the city at my brownstone. But it wasn’t easy getting here.”

“You cast Maintain the Flesh so many times,” Saffron says. “We could sense it through the quicksilver pool. What was happening to you?”

“I was getting shot. A lot. One got through.”

“Are you alright?” Candice asks maternally.

“Yes. Already healed. You probably sensed me casting that spell too. Along with Hide from Magic.”

“We did. Why that spell in particular?” Saffron asks.

“Felix. That teleportation circle landed me deep under The Vault.”

“What?” Candice exclaims, being motherly again.

Saffron is silent.

“I was surprised too. Trent works for Felix. Or, at least, he did. I don’t think he does anymore.”

“Why would you say that?” Saffron asks.

“He helped me escape. In fact, he’s the only reason I got out of there alive.”

“Are you sure, Jessica?” Saffron continues. “Be very careful. Whatever happened might have been an elaborate ruse. This could be a play by Felix to get close to Trixie again, except by proxy because he still can’t approach her directly.”

It’s a good point. I never thought about that. Still, something about that scenario doesn’t ring true.

“I know what you mean, but I don’t think so. You know Piper? Sylvia’s daughter? Well, it turns out Trent is her father. Felix has been leveraging Piper to make Trent do his bidding. She was locked in The Vault while I was there. I think Trent only helped me so I could help hide Piper from Felix. They’re both here with me right now.”

“Jessica, I want you to think very hard about this,” Saffron says. “The last time we saw Trent, he was trying to kill us.”

“And there was a post running through him,” Candice adds. “He was none too happy about that either."

“I know. When he activated that teleportation circle, we ended up in a dark stone room. No electricity whatsoever. There were torches, but only if you could find them in the dark. Without the post running through him, he healed pretty quickly.”

I am definitely leaving the sex part out for now.

“That’s when Felix showed up and opened the room. Not by opening a door, mind you. He removed a slab in the wall. I really don’t think he was expecting to see me there.”

“Why do you say that?” Saffron asks.

“Because I saw something very unusual down there. It was at the end of the hallway. Felix tried to hide it, but he really didn’t want me looking at anything too closely.”

“What did you see?” Candice asks.

“Two sets of steel doors with a battle depicted on them. There was a demonic swordsman on one side and a giant made out of fire and wind on the other.”

Silence on the other side of the line, from both of them this time.

I can’t help but picture the two of them looking back and forth across at each other.

“You’re right, Jessica,” Saffron finally says. “Felix wasn’t expecting you to be there. He never would have let you get away after seeing those doors. If Trent is helping you, keep working with him. We’ll get there as fast as we can. You can fill us in about the rest once we arrive.”

That was a complete change of heart. Cautioning me against Trent one moment, and trusting him the next.

“How soon can you be here?” I ask.

“Not for several hours,” Candice answers.

“Why? Can’t you just teleport here? I could really use your help. Sooner rather than later.”

“Have you checked the quicksilver pool lately, Jessica?” Saffron asks. “It’s empty.”

Candice and Saffron have given me a mission, one that I feel oddly giddy about. They still don’t know what happened between Trent and I back in The Vault. I was completely cut off from the quicksilver pool. They gave me this task thinking that they were asking a lot of me.

They couldn’t be more wrong, and I feel a little guilty about that.

There it is. Honesty.

I know why they asked. It’s an emergency and I’m the Maiden. I gather the rosebuds, as it were. It’s my role to keep the quicksilver pool full, and the most efficient way of doing is that is by siphoning the lust of men.

An even better way is by siphoning the lust of werewolves, as I found out with Mason.

But Mason isn’t here right now, Trent is. Mason is several hours away with Candice and Saffron, but my coven needs access to magic right now. Especially with Felix in play.

Candice was so tentative on the phone.
So… would you say you and Trent are allies right now?
Her meaning was clear. The quicksilver pool is virtually empty. That means I need to do what they trained me to do. I need to fill it up again.

I could have told them that Trent and I already had sex back in that stone room. I could have, but I didn’t. I omitted that not so little detail and I’m not sure why. Perhaps I still want to keep that moment to myself, the privacy of it. The vulnerability we shared.

A moment between Trent and I alone, at least until Felix opened the room.

For that matter, I also haven’t told anybody how aroused I get around Trent, like when he was going to
mark
me back at Sylvia’s place, me on my hand and knees, knickers down, ass in the air. It was meant as a distraction, but if Candice and Saffron had been even a few seconds later, I would have gone through with it.

Heck, I almost wanted them to be late.

None of which is to say I’ve stopped loving Mason. Not even the least little bit. I’ve never felt so ease with somebody, so comfortable in my own skin. There’s no guile between us whatsoever. Mason loves me for who I am and I feel the same way about him.

With Trent, well, I’m also myself, but it’s a completely different part than Mason sees. It’s much more mischievous. I’ve been seducing men as the Maiden for decades. Sometimes I play submissive and sometimes I play dominant. I am neither with Trent.

I am, however, in his face. Challenging both him and his authority. Vying to be put on equal footing with a werewolf. Holding my own with Trent, demanding equality of status, is enormously exciting for me. Him too.

Near as I can tell, Trent really likes it when I kick his hornet’s nest and refuse to back down to him. The relationship between him and Sylvia is clearly dominant and submissive, like any pack hierarchy.

I exist outside of that, formidable in my own right and shameless about my sexuality. I offer no hang-ups whatsoever. It’s what I do, after all. It just so happens that I enjoy my work. The fringe benefits as being a Maiden in a coven.

I make my way back down to the basement.

Candice and Saffron realize that gathering lust requires finesse sometimes, but they are counting on me more than usual right now. I don’t want to let them down. They need me to fill the quicksilver pool, and so fill it I shall, dutifully.

That being said, I can’t even pretend that my personal enjoyment is secondary to the job. The more I genuinely enjoy myself the better, after all, especially if my pleasure drives men to greater heights of their own, thereby creating more lust for me to leech.

The real trick is keeping them going, storing up their lust for an even bigger release. With Trent, I don’t know how that is going to work. He has so much control over himself already.

First things first. I have to separate Trent from his daughter. Turns out that won’t be quite so hard as I thought.

When I arrive back in the basement, Piper is fast asleep in her father’s arms. Poor thing is exhausted. Still, the timing is fortunate. This will make my task even easier.

Trent looks up at me while cradling Piper, who has reverted to being human again.

“She passed out right after you left. Now she’s utterly gone,” he says without lowering his voice. He shakes her body playfully. “I couldn’t wake her up if I tried.”

“I’m not surprised. She was tired before turning into a werewolf. I’m guessing the transformation took a lot out of her.”

“I really had no idea she could change, Jess. It’s rare at her age. She has the makings of a strong wolf.”

Trent is so proud of his little girl. Seeing him with Piper makes my stomach flip-flop. It’s so endearing coming from Trent for some reason. The cruel, red-eyed man I took to be an egotistical villain, now a doting father with strong paternal instincts.

His underbelly is showing again and he doesn’t even know it.

“There’s a daybed upstairs on the first floor. Let me tuck her in. You can clean up down here,” I say, inclining my head toward his blood on the floor.

Trent nods and hands Piper over to me, still sleeping. He wasn’t kidding. She’s completely knocked out.

I take Piper upstairs and lay her down on a daybed that I keep made up for guests. She takes to it right away, and I close the door quietly. The floorboards creak loudly under my feet as I pad away. I hope it doesn’t wake her up.

I stop in front of a hallway mirror near the front entranceway. The same mirror I’ve stopped in front of countless times while living here for decades. I’m filthy, but not in a bad way. More disheveled than unkempt. Dried blood on my shirt.

There’s a bullet hole through my shirt on two sides, indicating the entry and exit wounds. Trent and I have come through slaughter together in a very short period of time, but now it’s time to work. I adjust my hair without fixing it—can’t be too obvious—and then make my way downstairs.

The first-aid kit is already packed up when I return to the meditation room, and Trent is toweling his blood off the floor, making sure to get every drop.

Seeing him bent over the ground, muscles rippling as he scrubs the floor, wearing a shirt that is entirely too small for him… my libido is tweaked wide awake.

Yeah, this is going to be so difficult
, I tell myself sarcastically.

“Well, aren’t you fastidious,” I remark, placing one of my arms on the doorframe. “Do you clean like this all the time? Or just when it’s your blood on the floor?” I say with a grin.

“Would you think less of me if I said all the time? I’ve been accused of being a neat freak.”

Trent stands up and walks over to me. I’m standing by the downstairs bathroom door, where he stops short of me, towering over my height, fully restored to health and no less robust than ever, despite all of his near-brushes with death. Trent throws the bunched-up towel into the bathroom sink and then looks down at me.

“I wouldn’t think any less of you, but I will say that I’m surprised.”

“What can I say? I like paying attention to the little details.”

“Well, that part makes sense.”

Trent stands close me. The length of him across from the length of me. It practically feels like we’re already touching. It’s not hard for me to remember what his hands feel like on me, or to recall what our bodies have already done to each other.

I think Trent feels it too. Heck, maybe he even knows what I’m thinking. Can smell the arousal on my body.

“Candice and Saffron are on their way. It’ll be several hours before they get here. Piper will sleep for at least that long.”

Trent’s eyes widen. I can’t stop mine from doing the same.

“And Kumi?” he asks.

“I have no doubt that she’ll be at work for quite some time.”

That last piece of information was all Trent needed to hear. He knows that we’re all alone now. I couldn’t spell it out any more if I tried.

Candice and Saffron thought this would be an awkward assignment. The only difference between the last time Trent and I were together and now is that we can see other clearly.

Actually, that’s not true. There’s another important difference. The last time was right after we stopped trying to kill each other. This time is right after we survived keeping each other alive. Trent smiles at me and shakes his head slightly.

“You’re unbelievable,” he says.

I pull the meditation door closed behind me as my other arm falls from the doorframe to the back of his neck. A light touch, intimate. I’ll have to deal with the tattoo on his neck if my spell is going to work on him, but it can’t be obvious.

My eyes lazily half close as he wraps his arms around my back and lifts me up into an effortless kiss. No fumbling. No searching for lips. We get there at the same time, and it’s so intensely satisfying.

We endured a terrible ordeal together and lived. This is the reward, the most basic act of being alive. The pleasure of sharing our bodies. The little shocks that flesh is wont to have.