Bewitching The Alpha (Hex My Heart, #3) (8 page)
Read Bewitching The Alpha (Hex My Heart, #3) Online
Authors: Talina Perkins
Tags: #witches, #witches and wizards, #werewolves and shifters, #alpha, #shifter romance, #magic, #werewolf romance, #BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance, #werewolf, #paranormal romance
Only Honor and Ember left out one important detail. How sick it would make her. Ambrosia paused and clasped a hand to her stomach.
Not even the eldest witch of the High Council, Ms. Voltere’s, winter solstice fruitcake had this bad effect on her and that thing felled grown-ass men. Muscles constricted along her middle on a wave of nausea. Uh-oh.
Ice filled her veins and it wasn’t only the cold weather causing it. She quickened her steps, moving through the trees, over exposed roots and stumbled on a few she didn’t see in the muted moonlight. Trudging through the woods in the middle of winter didn’t exactly scream bright idea, but her sisters had a point. Winter’s first full moon would boost her moonpowers graced upon her by the goddesses.
Knots tightened her belly, but this time there was more at work than her liquid concoction. Her back stiffened milliseconds before the hair on her neck stood on end. She scanned the woods, her heart hammering against her chest.
Luke and Evan, were they close? She could feel it, the bond preparing for a fight. They had to be.
She scoffed. After tonight she’d belong to herself and no one else.
She fisted her resolve and shoved it back where it belonged. Firmly in place within the tight confines of her actions. One step forward, followed by another.
She’d gone the mundane route—ignore the bond at all cost. Chalk it up to what it was... a one-night stand that gave her a taste of what lay on the other side of the law. Come morn, it should have been all forgotten and out of her system.
She should have known one night with them would never be enough. After a month of denial and another two wishing things were different, she had to face the truth. As a Council member, rules bound her to never marry—or mate—outside her people or risk severe punishment.
As the first symptoms of the bonding took hold, she didn’t know what was wrong, thought maybe she was jonesing for more hot shifter sex, but deep down she knew it was more than what appeared on the surface.
In the last two months she’d drank, injected, bathed in, and smoked every elixir and charm her coven sisters had brewed up to no avail. She’d enjoyed a few feel-good side effects, but getting high wasn’t her ultimate goal.
The need, the bone-deep ache untouchable by any magick she knew of, grew hour after hour and tonight, the first day of the winter solstice, was her last shot at freeing herself before all Hades broke loose and she either went rogue and sought out her sinful shifters or went mad with lust. Thank the goddesses her sister had stepped in with one last option.
Chills rushed along her skin only to have a wave of heat to follow. Her breath now coming in shallow gasps.
Her inner walls clenched from an echo of Luke and Evan’s salacious ministrations to her body. Hellz, her senses and emotions collided with so much force she wanted to cry, laugh, and fuck all at once.
Emptiness and the craving for one more taste of what Luke and Evan offered drowned everything out. She froze, raking her hands through her hair and over her face for some kind of control.
“Whoa, girl.”
Live wires danced through her body in a low hum, and she continued forward.
Before tonight, her latest remedy courtesy of her coven sister, Ember, called for dragon’s blood.
Dread scaled down the length of her spine. The only thing worse than her current situation was owing the winged scaly beasts. She would suffer less jumping out of the cauldron and directly into the flames.
Asking a Dragon Lord for a single drop of blood would indenture her as their servant for the time they saw fit. There was no doubt the debt would call for sexual favors. But the other thing they would require of her, that’s where she paled. The things they could do without a witch’s powers scared her. What they could do with her particular skill set with moonpower made her heart stop cold.
Warriors, the entire race of them. Sensual creatures, bodies of gods meant to pleasure a woman, but it didn’t stop there. Their sinful lure a simple façade to the dark powers they wielded. She’d read the scribed stories from the Witches and Weres war during the height of their power two hundred years ago. How they once controlled an entire coven to do their dirty work during the blood-drenched clash. Once they entwined their magick over a witch, all the good intentions in the world wouldn’t save them. If allowed to dig their talons in, dragons never let go. They claimed. Like all shifters.
Her laws forbade it for council members. Within her coven, only she and Ember were from within the High Council. Her other coven sisters were witches, but not of royal blood so safe from punishment.
Those outside the High Council could entertain the idea of taking a mate other than a witch or warlock, but still feared rejection from the Council.
And Ember’s lack of concern for the law stood out like a siren in the storm that would eventually call attention. She didn’t seem to care about the ‘archaic group of cave dwellers’—aka their Elders. Her coven sister loved to defy the High Council just for the hell of it.
But Ambrosia didn’t.
If only she hadn’t let her sisters convince her one night of no rules and too much Moon Lust brew would be a good idea. Letting go and getting freaky, as they put it, landed her in a bubbling cauldron of deep trouble and now she was paying the heavy price with everything that meant anything to her.
Tonight afforded her one last chance at getting back the old Ambrosia pre-one night stand and her double alpha bonding status.
She rubbed a hand over her chest.
Another week, hellz bellz, another hour feeling the weight of all the supernatural worlds on her shoulders...
She puffed out a smoky sigh. She should be tucked away in her warm bed, her fingers curled around her latest addition to her handheld boyfriends, fantasizing about two sets of strong hands and the devilish smiles that went with them. She might be fighting to rid herself of their claim, but a girl had her fantasies and they’d always be the center of her attention.
Distracted by her thoughts, she missed the slight dip in the ground and lost her footing.
Going ass first in the snow, she fisted a handful before pulling herself up. She squeezed her grip. Ice crystals crunched together to form a hard ball in her palm.
If she had half a chance she’d throw it right at Luke and Evan’s heads. Her feet had lost feeling minutes ago and her fingers were numb. Clouds rolled along the inky sky to shield her path of the natural light. She took a long breath, raised her hand, and called on the lady of the moon for light, coaxing her gently with the lull of her magick to reveal her glow.
After a whole lot of clandestine research and repeat history browser cleaning, she finally found the problem to her symptoms.
Luke and Evan’s wolves had sneaked in and placed a bond on her soul. The only thing needed to make it permanent was a full moon and a bite. Or two. She didn’t know if it was possible for two shifters to claim one mate. And never would.
By all accounts, she should be mad. Furious. But then she let her mind drift to the soul-searing orgasms they bestowed on her. Their heavy lengths buried within her body, the hum of anticipation right before they captured her. The unyielding electric current of satisfaction that hummed through her spent body the next morning...
She thought two things.
How fast could she run? And hellz bellz, when could she have more?
(End of sneak peek)
To continue reading make sure to pick up the second Hex My Heart release, Jinxing the Alphas!
T
alina writes steamy military and paranormal romance books with fast paced plots, strong heroines, and kick-ass alpha heroes.
Born and raised in Mayberry USA, this small town country girl spread her wings at the young age of fourteen and moved to Mexico where she's lived for the past eighteen years. Now, Talina currently resides in sunny Puerto Vallarta with her four children and is married to a U.S. Recon Marine—her very own smokin’ hot hero.
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Bewitching the Alpha
by Talina Perkins
E
xcerpt from JINXING THE ALPHAS copyright© 2015 Talina Perkins
Edited by Em Petrova
Cover Design by Bookin’ It Designs
eBook ISBN: 9781310833076
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the permission in writing from the Author.