Sinful Magic (9 page)

Heat flared in his body, a protective and deeply erotic sensation rising and grabbing hold.

He sucked in a breath to get control and realized the sharp scent of her pain was fading. “Better?”

“Yes,” it came out a groan. “Keep going.”

As if he’d stop. The slope of her neck enticed him just like every other part of her. He wanted to press his mouth to that spot. He looked down her back at the curve of her waist and the flare of her hips beneath her skirt. Christ, she was built for sex, for a man to lose himself in her.

For him to lose himself in her.

“Ahh.” She dropped her head forward, relaxing.

Her voice vibrated, almost a deep purr that sent redhot shivers down his spine and thrummed in his groin. Her scent was caramelizing, so potent he leaned forward and brushed his mouth over the curve of her shoulder.

She shivered.

More! The command came from the most primitive part of his brain.

“Kieran

”

Her voice in sex mode, he wanted that. Lifting his mouth from her shoulder, he turned her and pressed her to the wall. Careful of the bruise, he leaned in, cupped her face, and brushed his mouth over her lips. Feathering and gentle, learning the lines and curves of her lips. Those brushes tempted the shit out of him. Her lips were soft and full, with a hint of what lay inside.

She made a soft sound.

A primal groan tried to surge in him, but he ruthlessly controlled it, refusing to hurt her. He kissed and licked, while using his thumbs to stroke her face, her jaw, feeling the kick in her pulse. Oh yeah, he was giving her pleasure.

She opened beneath him, responded to his touch in a way that shuddered right down his spine. He dipped his tongue into her mouth, tasting the warm depths as hunger exploded. A growl rumbled in his chest, while he skimmed his hands over her shoulders, over her waist, filling his palms with the curve of her hips.

Roxy moaned and grabbed his arms, her fingers digging into his muscles. She rose up on her toes, and kissed him back.

Hard.

Her tongue rubbed against his. Full breasts pressed to his chest, making his dragon shift restlessly. Her scent was thickening with her need.

Ease her! The words thumped through his brain in time with the lust pounding in his cock. Key reached lower, cupped her ass and lifted her. Aggressive, needy, hot, he had to have her. He shoved the skirt up and pressed his hips between her thighs. Seeking her heat, her most intimate ache

She cried out, tearing her mouth from his. “Hurts. No!”

He froze. He was hurting her? Her jaw? “Where?” he demanded while fighting down the crazed primal urge throbbing in his cock, tightening his balls, and pounding in his blood.

She was panting, her nails ripping into the skin on his biceps. “My schema.”

Something really was wrong. Holding her, he strode to the bed, set her down, and shoved up her skirt. She had smooth full thighs that made him swallow. He ignored that and zeroed his gaze in on the upper left leg.

His blood pounded in his ears, and he crouched down to eye level. Her scent was hotter, richer, and made his mouth water. But his gaze caught and held on the mark. Nestled up close to the copper silk panties was a two-inch figure of the fertility goddess outlined in the thinnest line of emerald green and filled in with the barest tinge of sea blue and green. It was stunning. He wanted to touch the symbol, stroke it, pet it

Roxy caught his hand sliding up her thigh. “No!”

He forced his gaze up to hers. “I can stop the pain.” How the hell did he know that? It was some elemental instinct. It wound deep within him, creating erotic images that hardened his cock unbearably. And when he inhaled, he caught more than her desire, he smelled a whiff of magic. Danger! his mind screamed. He was so hot, so on edge, if he stopped touching her, the curse would burst out and he’d want her blood. Crave it. “What the hell is going on?”

Her eyes were the color of spring grass, fragile and layered with emotions. “It’s starting

you have to stop touching me.”

He fought the urge to look again, to see her creamy thighs with the mark of the fertility goddess and her panties that hid the part of her he was desperate to see, to touch. Ripping his hands away, he rose and took two steps back. His veins began to pulse and twitch, but he was still in control. Barely.

She got up and shoved her skirt down.

He couldn’t look away. Standing there, shimmying her skirt over her hips, her mouth kiss-swollen, her breasts jiggling in the cups of her bra, and her scent enticing him. He forced his gaze up to her face. “Tell me.”

She looked at him like he’d kicked her puppy. Like he was the enemy. Her shoulders dropped and her eyes closed. “It’s starting.” Then she opened her eyes and they shimmered with unshed tears. “You’re my Awakening. You’re destroying me.”

Her last words ripped through him, getting too damned close to places better left alone. “What the hell does that mean? If I’m your Awakening

shit!” It hit him what she must mean. If her magic released suddenly, it would inflame his curse, and he could lose control. Kill her. Frustration brutally clamped his neck muscles. “I won’t hurt you.” He’d plunge his knife into his own chest before he let himself hurt another woman.

The tears turned to glittering anger. “You are hurting me! I don’t want to be a fertility witch, but when I’m near you, my schema hurts, my body aches

I don’t want it!”

He was hurting her just standing there? His gut burned, but he couldn’t just leave her. Yet a kernel of low-grade panic formed in his chest. Everything was happening too fast, going too deep. “We have to talk about this, figure it out. There are things we need to—”

“No. I can’t be near you. Not now, not ever.” She sucked in a deep breath. “This attraction, it’s not real. It’s manufactured by my schema to release my magic.”

Anger leaped up into the brew of frustration, worry, and helplessness. “Bullshit.” He fisted his hands to keep from reaching out, hauling her up to his mouth, and silencing her. Untamed possessiveness dragged him a step closer to her. “What’s between us is real.” He would not let her make this attraction between them ugly. Since he’d drawn the picture, she’d touched his life with a singular beauty. He’d treasure that memory always.

She turned her face away. “Once we had sex, I’d come into my magic. The woman you know now, the one you see now, she’d be gone. And you’d grow to hate me.” She added quietly, “I’d grow to hate me.”

Key blinked at the whispered shame crawling through her words. It beat at him, made his skin itch. She really didn’t want this. Their attraction really was ugly to her. He hated the fertility witch who had perverted him into a monster. Roxy was a fertility witch, but when he looked at her

he didn’t see it. She’d put herself in danger to help him save that kid. He was sure she’d use her magic responsibly. So why did she think her sex magic would be so bad? He didn’t dare touch her, didn’t dare bring out any more of her power that could incite his curse. But he couldn’t bear her suffering. “How do you know that?”

She turned back. “It’s what happened with my parents. My mother needed more and more sex to feed her magic. My father got tired of being nothing but a power source to her. Now all she has is her power. I don’t want that.”

How had this gone so wrong? He’d been trying to keep her safe from Liam, but he was destroying her. Quietly, he asked, “What do you want?”

“To become fully mortal. Find a man who can love me, really love me. Have a family. Live my life in a real and meaningful way. I want sex to mean something, be an expression of caring, not just be used as a way to get power.”

He stood perfectly still, yet a kernel of panic exploded inside him. This was exactly what he didn’t want. Love was a fragile emotion, so easily broken, and when it broke, it destroyed the people involved. Family? He couldn’t go there.

He’d destroy her. Somehow, someway, he always did.

“Please, Key, just leave.”

His chest hurt. “I can’t leave you alone and unprotected. Liam’s out there, Roxy. He’s going to find a way to get you.” She was too vulnerable. He flashed on the picture he drew of her, cut up.

She lifted her head, the bruising on her cheekbone more vivid when her eyes were empty. “I can live with that risk, but I can’t live with my magic.”

Roxy ached deep in her pelvis where her first chakra resided, and in her lower abdomen where her second chakra, the one that held sexuality, cramped in protest. The schema tingled.

She got up, stripped off her skirt, found a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Then she grabbed her cellphone and called the one person who would understand.

“Roxy, I’ve been waiting!” Shayla answered. “So did you meet them? Nina, Perry, and Kieran?”

“He’s my Awakening,” she blurted out.

“Who? What happened? You found your Awakening? Oh God, I knew I should have gone!”

“Shayla, you can’t.” Her cousin was tainted. In the Banfield line of witches, one witch in every generation carried a mutation of infertility. They discovered it at puberty when their schema formed into a black barren tree instead of the goddess mark. Shayla had the barren tree mark. No one knew how the original mutation had happened or why it continued generation after generation. Just using their magic spread infertility, and over the centuries, if discovered, infertility witches were sometimes killed by mortals and even witches. Most tried very hard to avoid their Awakening and become mortal. Shayla was grimly determined to let her chakras die, so they couldn’t risk Shayla accidentally running into her Awakening. Her cousin spent most of her time at home or places she knew were safe, like Roxy’s, or all-women gyms, etcetera. “My Awakening is Kieran DeMicca.”

“Creator of Dyfyr? Unfreakingbelievable. Okay, that means DeMicca is now dead to us. Get the fuck away from him!”

“It gets better. He’s a witch hunter. One of the Wing Slayer Hunters.”

“No shit? Roxy, run. Now. Or I’m coming to get you.”

That made her stomach tighten. “No, Shayla, I’m coming home. I’m going to call for an earlier flight and leave the hotel.”

“Roxy, how’s your schema?”

She hesitated, but lying wouldn’t help. She hated herself for being weak. Even now, she ached for the touch of the man who would awaken her fertility magic. “There’s color, it’s started. And sweet crone, I want him.” She straightened her back. “But I’ll fight it, Shayla.” She had to. Roxy wanted more in her life then a series of sex partners to feed her magic that could never be satisfied. “I’m going to be mortal, have a real family.” A lover who wouldn’t grow to hate her for what she was. She didn’t want her father to hate her like he hated her mom and magic. Her father insisted she become mortal, while her mother pushed her to find her Awakening. What do you want? Kieran had asked her, the only one to ask her that. And the answer? To be loved for who she was. To be safe to be herself.

“I’ll help you. We made a pact. You’ll stay with me, and somehow we’ll find a way to stop your schema.”

Her cousin’s words pulled her from her confused thoughts. “Okay. And, Shayla, I’m going to pitch buying the dramatic rights for Eternal Assassins to my dad.”

“Just get home. We’ll deal with all that later.” She hung up.

Roxy hoped so.

Quickly, she repacked her suitcase and called the airline and booked a flight. Then she called her dad, but thankfully he was in a meeting, so she just left a message that she had what she needed and was coming home early.

Then she made her last call to her bodyguard, Joel, and asked him to arrange transportation to the airport. She wasn’t taking any chances and would have her bodyguard with her until she was through security. With that done, she then sent a text to Meryl, letting her know she was leaving. Just as she hit SEND, the screen bloomed into a picture.

It was her mother. Gwen Banfield had red hair similar to Roxy’s, but her mother’s had several distinctive silver streaks. They shared the same green eyes. “Roxy, you’ve found your Awakening.”

Old anger and longing mixed with everything else to give Roxy, a pounding headache. “How do you know?”

“Circle Witches. Apparently, the witch hunter told some witches who asked us if there was a way to repress the attraction.”

Key had done that? He had heard her when she said she didn’t want her magic, and was trying to find a way to help her. God, just thinking about him

Don’t.

Instead she focused on the question. “Is it possible?” Her mother had created the Circle Witches years ago as a way for witches to meet safely to share knowledge and power. If Kieran knew who her mother was, he and his crew wouldn’t be so eager to help. Her mother hated the soulmirror witches, hated how they were taking control away from her. She’d formed the loop because the curse had forced them into hiding from rogues, so witches rarely ever risked gathering in person. They were just too vulnerable. Witch karma kept them from doing any harm with their powers, even to protect themselves. Before the curse, witch hunters protected earth witches, hunting only demon witches who had traded their souls for dark magic, but now earth witches had no protection at all. The men who had once guarded them now hunted and killed them.

Gwen’s mouth thinned. “Roxy, you can’t fight this. Your father has poisoned you against your magic. He’s made it into something dirty and disgusting. It’s not, our gift is sex magic. It can be beautiful

”

She felt her throat tighten at the memories of the various men in the house when she’d lived with her mom. Their voices as they stormed out, What are you, some kind of sex freak? It’s never enough! You’re draining me. Or the opposite, the ones begging to stay, to have more of her. Then there were the whispers from her teachers or the parents about her mom, about all the men, so they looked at Roxy with a pitying expression. Or suspicion—would she grow up to be like her mother? It all came to a head on the night when she’d been eleven years old and woke up with a man in her room. Frightened, Roxy had called her dad. He’d been furious and demanded that Gwen choose—either change her life, or Roxy would live with him. Gwen chose sex magic over her daughter, and Roxy moved in with her father.