Trent: Her Warlock Protector Book 7 (2 page)

“It’s got a street, big freaking deal.”

She drew closer to him and stood up on tip-toe. He wasn’t sure she realized she’d done it––a challenge. Suddenly his own magic stirred, being this close to her. While he was an adept caster as long as it involved animal transmogrification, there was still one form that Trent favored over all others. While flying as an eagle could be breath taking or swimming with the skill of a shark intoxicating, it was his wolf form he preferred the most, the ritual he turned to frequently. Over the twenty-five years he’d been a fully immortal warlock, the wolf had become a part of him, a set of instincts and increased senses that called to him even when he wasn’t near the fur belt that allowed him to change.

That was the bitch of being a shape shifting Wiccan. Sometimes the wild became a part of you, more deeply than you could even imagine. Commandant Worthen was close to five hundred years old and had told him once that there were shapeshifting spell casters who sometimes went into the forest, chose the shape they’d turned to for centuries, and never came back out.

He wasn’t there yet, never planned to be.

Still, it didn’t mean that the wolf instincts that had bled into his own didn’t recognize a challenge when they saw it. It was damn sexy if he did say so himself, that this novice witch would even try to challenge him.

“You want it to be too quiet in Alabama, but it’s not. You’ve been here long?”

“I just got to Tuscaloosa a couple months ago.”
 

He knew that it would be best not to add that the reason he’d been sent here was to spy on her.
 

“So you haven’t gone into The Magic City, much?”

“The what?”

Elaine slapped her forehead lightly with the heel of her palm.
 

“So you’ve never been to Birmingham period. It’s on the sign, city motto and all that. So you can’t really condemn a place as not as good as New York–”

“Which is the best city on Earth,” he said, smirking back at her.
 

Elaine looked away from his gaze and the wolf side of him sensed her arousal. Oh, he’d have to make that expression at her more often.
 

“It’s crowded, has pigeons and rats, and everyone’s damn rude. I’m not sure New York is the best anything. If you haven’t been to Bham though? Trust me, you’re missing out.”

“It’s probably just Mayberry,” he said, leaning closer to her, enjoying the heat rising from her cheeks. “But, maybe you can show me around this weekend, Miss Tour Guide.”

Elaine swallowed and stumbled back suddenly. She would have fallen on her ass if he hadn’t caught her by the shoulders. It was then that Trent noticed the way her nostrils flared, as if she were scenting him and he wondered if her gift was more than just mental control or influence over animals. Perhaps their intel was off and she had shapeshifting capacities as well, at least with the right ritual training.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“Very,” he said, realizing he meant it. His wolf side was practically howling, demanding he kiss her right there and make her his. He shoved that aside and reminded himself he was a wizard and a warrior and that even if he could change shapes, it didn’t mean he had to carry those instincts with him. “So, country girl, you think you can prove to me this is a worthwhile place and not some cowtown?”

“Is that a dare?” she asked, and he wondered if Elaine noticed how her breath was coming in shorter, more ragged gasps.

“It definitely is. So you pick a place, and I’ll meet you there at seven on Saturday. We’ll see the city and you try and rock my world.”

Elaine gulped and he loved this, getting to her, seeing her limits. Goddess, yes, seeing where all her limits were would be exquisite.
 

“All right,” she replied extending her hand for him to shake. “You have a deal.”

Trent would have left that place howling triumphant, at least figuratively speaking, if on his way out Floyd the Neanderthal hadn’t been glaring hard at him. Hopefully it was typical jealousy, but he filed it away to put in his notes later. There was something dark in Floyd Lockwood, and he didn’t like his proximity to Elaine at all.

ELAINE BLACKHAWK HAD three rules she lived by. The first was that she only kept minimal contact with her father over at the Muskogee reservation in Moundville, Alabama. It was the only way to keep her sanity. She was a half-breed, and while she did love her father, Efrim Blackhawk, she just couldn’t be a part of his world. She was too different there, and her mother had never truly been welcome. It hurt too much to go back, so, once she turned eighteen, she just kept it to every-other-holiday and Father’s Day.
 

The second rule was that she didn’t get involved with people at work. She’d never dated other graduate students in her program. Not that there’d been much temptation in the two years she’d been working towards her master’s in psychology. It was mostly other women in her class, and that just wasn’t her style. The few men were far too mousy or nerdy, true library dorks. She applied that rule doubly hard to the men on the ranch. While they appealed to her at least with their ruggedness and often decent physiques, she never wanted to risk losing the sanctuary that was the barn. Since she was eighteen and started leasing Rainstone with money saved up from long summers spent waitressing, Elaine felt at home there. While she’d always felt awkward even with her friends at Tuscaloosa and never welcome fully at the rez, on the farm she was just one of the gang, mucking out stalls and jumping fences.
 

She’d never forgive herself if an ugly break-up ruined it.

So why she’d been tempted to say yes to a first-time rider like Trent Williamson, she wasn’t sure.

Okay that wasn’t completely true.

The man was gorgeous. Tall, easily 6’2” if he was an inch, with close-cropped, sandy, blonde hair and a svelte swimmer’s build. Even if he was a bit of a city boy, the rippling muscles under his tight white t-shirt yesterday had shown her that he was more than capable and strong. Maybe he was a gym rat type. She wasn’t sure, but Elaine could admit that she had spent last night imagining those strong arms wrapped around her. It was the eyes, though, that really drew her in. They were piercing, a brilliant tawny gold that made her breath still in her throat.
 

They called to her.

Which led Elaine to her rule number three: never talk about her weirdness. That’s how she thought about it. Ever since her first disastrous romance during her junior year of high school with the Chief’s son, she’d been
different
. It wasn’t “different” like she’d felt like a woman the morning after. Hell, some days she’d trade it for the kind of “different” where she’d caught something from Stephen Morningsong.
 

No.

This was something else. Ever since her first time, her life had changed fundamentally in a way she’d never told anyone about. Her senses were heightened. She could hear things other people couldn’t, see in the night like it was day, and could tell a dozen different things about someone just by their scent. Similarly, animals just responded to her. People at competitions used to complain she had to have some trick to get Rainstone to comply well during dressage contests. It was almost true. In some ways, it was as if her horse could read and anticipate her thoughts. It didn’t stop there. Strange dogs at the park would always come up to her and stray cats would come down from trees to greet her. She was always the first person to catch a fish on those long trips with her dad because even they seemed drawn to her.

Elaine had the faintest suspicion what it was. They said that her father’s mother had been a Medicine Woman for the tribe. Recently, her father had even found some of her grandmother’s old journals, bound in actual deer hide. Elaine had been leafing through the collected recipes and remedies there.

It was hard to believe, even now, but after seven years of thinking about it and studying her family’s history, Elaine suspected she was a Medicine Woman as well or some kind of witch. It would at least explain some of the animals’ affinity for her, her ways to get them to comply with her wishes as well. She couldn’t explain how the senses played into it, not yet, and she wasn’t sure she ever would. It wasn’t like there was a current Medicine Person for her tribe. She felt nuts even thinking about asking anyone about this, even if she had once Googled Wiccans in the Birmingham area.

It sounded too nuts: “Hi, I can tell if you’re a natural blonde with one sniff and might have a telepathic link with my horse. So am I a witch?”

So she never, ever talked about what had happened to her and what she could do. It was the only way she felt she could keep her sanity. It scared and overwhelmed her how easily she’d crumbled around Trent, broken rule number two for him. Because, deep down, she knew why. Cute or not, the real reason was there was something almost feral about him. It called to the deep instincts that she never indulged, those thoughts she hid even from herself.

It scared her.

How wild would she let herself be with him?

And would she ever come back?

• • • • •

Even two days after his lesson with Elaine, Trent woke up with his cock hard and throbbing. It was painful to shuffle as far as the shower, and it taunted him as the first drips rained forth. Normally, Trent was a warlock who loved his creature comforts, which included an almost scalding shower. It took everything he had not to jump into the cold shower, but he didn’t want to ruin his buzz that way. Once the faucet’s stream was tolerable, Trent rushed in.

Closing his eyes, he lathered up his hands with soap and started to pleasure himself. His hand encircled his engorged dick and started to pump in a slow rhythm. His cock jerked at the touch and he almost came right then. Goddess, that hadn’t happened in over thirty years and back when he was really still just a teenager.
 

What was this woman doing to him?

His left hand cupped his balls and he squeezed just a bit, giving the most teasing pleasure. His tempo increased with his right hand and his fingers trailed over the head of his member. The nerves there were beyond sensitive and even trailing his fingers over the tip, made his knees quake under him. Keeping his eyes shut, he recalled Elaine. As he stroked harder and began to moan, all he could see was her. He recalled the scent of her, the mix of fresh cut greenery and hay, but Trent went beyond that, imagining the softness of her breasts, what they’d feel like under his grip. His pumping became furious then and he thought of those doe brown eyes looking up at him as her hot little mouth wrapped itself around his cock.

It was her mouth and not his insufficient hand on him, her tongue tickling him and not his awkward fingers. It was her moaning his name over and over. He thought of himself coming, envisioned Elaine lapping his seed up eagerly and that was enough to send him spiraling over the edge of the climax. Leaning heavily against the tile, Trent came, cum spilling into the shower’s drain. He kept stroking himself, even as everything poured from him, refusing to let any sensation slip by, enjoying the waves of pleasure assaulting him too much.

Saturday evening couldn’t arrive soon enough.

“YOU WERE NOT paying attention at all for Dr. Buckley’s lecture,” Elaine’s friend, Carrie, chirped while sipping on a milkshake next to her at the student union.

Elaine blinked back at her friend and marveled at the other girl’s appetite. Carrie was five feet total and willowy. However, there was never a time when the girl wasn’t chomping away at something. Right now she was slurping on a drink about the size of her head and also nursing a basket of fries. Elaine envied her.

“I was,” Elaine protested.
 

She loved Carrie. The other girl was her best friend at The University of Alabama, but Rule Three was steadfast. It was why she didn’t want to let Carrie coax her into a conversation. The only way to really, truly explain her distraction was to admit there was something in her that Trent was stirring.

Elaine couldn’t afford to do that. Either Carrie would stop talking to her or call someone to lock her in a padded cell. Neither option was acceptable.

“So what was the good doc talking about?”

“Conditioning, all that Skinner pigeon stuff.”

“Eh no, but thanks for playing. You’ll have a toaster as a parting gift. We talked about attachment. You weren’t even close.”

“Then it was boring either way and I’ll re-read the textbook.”

“And,” Carrie said, shoving another French fry in her mouth. “You’ll ask me for some great notes. However, I’m not your patsy. I won’t turn over the goods unless you tell me what’s with the thousand yard stare?”

“Nothing.”

“Elainnnne…”

“Fine,” she said, figuring that a partial truth would help. Stealing a fry from the tray and adding ketchup to it, Elaine added, “There was just this client at the farm the other day.”

“Client like annoying person? Client like they almost fell off so would have sued you? Or is this client as in hot guy and I’m not a nun anymore?”

“Whoa! Down girl,” Elaine replied, laughing a little bit. Carrie joined in too, and it made her dark, black curls bob. “Okay so it might be a little of number three.”

“A little?”

“Okay so
a lot
. This guy was really gorgeous––tall, muscular, and with the most amazing eyes I’ve ever seen, like melted amber. It was just…I dunno.”

“You can’t tell me he didn’t like you,” Carrie replied, shaking her head. “Also, you can’t tell me it’s because you’d rather date Floydenstein over at the stables.”

“His name is just Floyd, and he’s gruff but not mean.”

“He has a unibrow. That’s a fashion don’t. I wouldn’t be surprised to find bolts in his neck to match his non-personality. Anyway, did he send the wrong signals? Not interested? Because I can help you with a makeover. I have been dying to help your poor cuticles forever. Ever heard of work gloves?”

“It’s just the hazards of working a farm. And, no,” she added, biting her lip a little. “He asked me out. Even said I could plan the date in the city this Saturday.”