Devious Magic (7 page)

“Is it a sex gift?” I asked, covering my mouth with mock shock, “because you’ve given me plenty of those.”

Evan chuckled. “No, it isn’t.” He crossed to the nightstand on his side of the bed – it still seemed strange to think of his side and mine – and opened the drawer, rummaging inside. While he did that, I sat on the blanket, crossing my legs under me.

I’d been spoiled with presents already today. Along with Annalise and Gage’s necklace, Étoile gave me a sizeable gift voucher to an online store I liked and Kitty bought me a gift basket from Sephora.

When Evan turned round, he had a slim package in his hands. He settled down next to me, leaning against the footboard of the bed, and passed it to me. “What is it?” I asked.

“Open it.”

I opened the box, and found another container. I opened three more, each a different colour and texture before I got to the final, small, square box. Opening it, I gasped. The ring inside was beautiful. Platinum set with little jewels, each a different colour. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. “I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s an eternity ring.” Evan took it from the box and picked up my hand, sliding it over the middle finger of my right hand. I held it up, admiring the way it caught the light. “The jewels are very old but the setting is new. Do you like it?”

“I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Evan’s face lit up. “It has special properties which I’ll tell you about another time.”

“Sounds intriguing.” I leant over and kissed him, brushing my lips across his. Pulling me into his arms, he returned the kiss with a depth and passion that left me breathless. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so hungry.

My heart was racing slightly. Distinctly carnal thoughts rose to the forefront of my mind as I reached for him, my arms wrapping around his neck. I knelt in front of him and leant into his kiss. It seemed to last forever as he pulled me in deeper, our tongues finding each other happily.

“Bed?” Evan asked, breaking away for a moment, his hands still wrapped in my hair.

“Floor,” I replied, one hand on his chest, pushing him backwards. He tipped me with him, kissing me again, and then his hands were moving, over my shoulder and back, and to my front where he played with my shirt buttons, popping each one.

“I like it when you wear shirts,” he said, against my throat, which he was peppering with kisses.

“You could just magic it off.”

“Sometimes I just enjoy undressing you.”

I shuffled on top of him, feeling his growing hardness budding against my leg. “Duly noted.”

“Being with you makes me very happy,” he told me.

I wriggled so I was sitting up, astride his thighs, and smiled down at him. He had unsnapped the last button and was tweaking my shirt apart, running his hands up my stomach to rest over my satin bra. I took a moment to be glad I was wearing nice underwear before focusing on what I was going to say. “I’m glad that makes you happy, but what about everything else?”

“What do you mean?” He slid my shirt down my shoulders and tossed it in the vague direction of the laundry hamper. It missed woefully.

“I mean are you otherwise happy? I know living here isn’t what you want.”

“Are we going to have this discussion now?” Evan looked disappointed, but being the truly focused daemon he was, he reached up and unsnapped the front hook of my bra, teasing back the cups, smiling then.

“Yes, because we haven’t been alone all day and it’s been on my mind.”

He thought for a moment and I watched the strong structure of his chest rising and falling. Sturdy and masculine, he was truly an exceptionally enjoyable sight, clothed or unclothed. He said, “I do find myself missing home and the life I had before. I was very active, worked very hard and travelled a lot. Now I find I am not adjusting to the administration of the business quite as well without being as active. My employees have grown, but I never get the chance to be as hands-on as I would like. My name is my business and I am not doing as much as I should. I’m going to need to travel more often and that worries me.”

“Why does it worry you?”

“Because you attract danger and I want to protect you. I can’t do that if I’m somewhere else.”

“Isn’t that partly what all the lessons for? So I can protect myself?” I asked, just like I’d asked Étoile earlier.

Evan nodded. “We’re almost at the end of our lessons now. I can’t teach you much more, neither can Étoile. Most of what we do now is practice anyway, to push your boundaries. The only other things to learn are about the histories of our different races, and you can read books on that. You don’t need me to give you history lessons.”

“I know. So... I don’t want a babysitter, Evan. And I don’t want you miserable either.”

“I’m not miserable.” He shook his hand as if to emphasise his point. His hands had somehow covered my breasts as we talked and he was playing with my nipples, running them between thumb and forefinger. He sighed. “I’m not sure Wilding is the place I want to be forever.”

“I know.” A small pang of guilt struck me. Of course, I knew that, but now it was out in the open, it couldn’t be ignored. I felt an enormous surge of gratitude for everything he’d done for me, for all the times he’d come to my aid. But he was right; it was time for me to stand on my own two feet. “We’ll have to find a happy compromise,” I offered, wondering what that could be.

“Can we do that after sex?” He looked hopeful. His hands dropped to my waist, and he pulled me up his body slightly. Okay, he didn’t need to point out the absolute obvious.

I laughed. “Mmm,” I murmured, pushing thoughts of the future aside. Our happy compromise could start, right now, with something we both wanted. I ran my hands down his chest, pausing at his waistband to unsnap the button, levering the denim open. “Can you do something about these clothes now?”

As I said it, I felt our clothes melt away until we were nothing but skin against skin. A rush of heat spiralled through my body. Lifting slightly, I rubbed myself against him, enjoying the look on his face as he hardened, pushing back against me. He lay back on the rug – suddenly empty too – and held my hips, encouraging me. Pushing up on my knees, I positioned myself over him, bearing down until I could feel him entering me. I gripped his upper arms and took him within me, a sigh escaping my lips.

I set the pace, his hips rising and falling to meet mine, then pulling me down so he could kiss me again, our tongues mating as our bodies conjoined. The feel of him filling me, over and over, was bliss incarnate. I loved the soft groans that escaped him, the feel of his torso pressed against mine, one hand cupping the back of my head while the other pressed against the small of my back.

Just as I felt my climax rising, warmth spiralling from my core, he grasped me with both hands and, in one swift move, I was on my back looking up, beyond his handsome face to the starry canopy he’d conjured above. Dragging my eyes away from the spectacle, I fixed on him. His eyes had taken on the purple-black hue they always did when we made love. I called them his horny eyes and, while he didn’t disagree, I wondered if it meant something more to him. If there were anything I needed an owner’s manual on, it was daemons.

My fingers dug into the sculpted muscles of his back as my orgasm ripped through me. My lashes could barely obscure the stars I saw shooting across the sky, one after the other, like fireworks. Under that sky, his hands folded under my hips to arch me up to him, Evan pushed one final time, and then melted over me, his lips nuzzling at my neck. “Happy birthday,” he whispered.

“I wish it was my birthday every day.” I was attempting to hold back a giggle. My face was flushed and I was riding a freight train full of endorphins. “I like the thing you did with the shooting stars.”

Evan craned his head to glance over his shoulder. The last star shot across the canopy and exploded into a little burst of fireworks that seemed to drizzle earthwards, the glittery droplets disintegrating as they reached the floor. “That wasn’t me,” he said, turning back to me with a smile. “That was you.”

“Oh,” I whispered. “Cool.”

In another room, music clicked on. I frowned up at Evan, dropping my voice to a whisper. “Were we too loud?”

“No.” He looked in the direction of the music. “Though maybe we can discuss living alone? I have a yen to have you in front of the fire in the living room.”

I raised my eyebrows, a smile curling on my lips. “I’ll add both to the agenda.”

***

Gage, along with Annalise and Beau, came by in the morning to report. Pack members Jay and Kristin kept watch on Jones and the other Brotherhood minion throughout the night. Gage put his phone on speaker so when they called in with their news, we could all listen.

They didn’t have much to report. It seemed the Brotherhood men currently holed up at the motel were quiet and hadn’t left their room all night. However, they had been seen making several calls before the drapes were drawn. Even wolf ears couldn’t hear far enough across the parking lot and through walls to know who they were calling and why.

I yawned, slapping a hand over my mouth as Jay and Kristin signed off. Despite the very pleasurable end to my birthday, I’d had an uneasy night. Knowing that the Brotherhood were so close by, and almost certainly knew where I lived was an uncomfortable thought. I half expected them to arrive in the dark, torches blazing, and attack my house. In reality, hopefully, nothing they could do would work – magic protected my house and a daemon slept in it. But it didn’t stop me from worrying.

Evan pressed a cup of hot coffee into my hand and sat next to me, asking Gage questions about what vehicle the men were driving and did they discover anything about the second man. Sipping my coffee, I saw the plane ticket Jones handed me, the same one that I placed on the mantelpiece last night and ignored until now. In the back of my mind, I saw the date and time counting down, like a flip board, or a bomb about to go off.

I had some time to think about it this morning, when I woke up much earlier than Evan. I doubted that Jones expected me to be on that plane; but it seemed an awful long way to come on what currently amounted to a fool’s errand. It wasn’t just that I had no intention of going to Hawkscroft, but that I had no intention of ever willingly meeting another Brotherhood member, much less their leader. Not even the idea of being on home shores placated, or attracted, me. There were a lot of things I missed about England – the chocolate, the familiarity, sometimes even the more mundane parts of my previous life. But the Brotherhood, along with the weather, I could definitely do without.

Now, playing on my mind too was both Evan and Étoile’s separate suggestions that Wilding wasn’t safe. Leaving wasn’t something I wanted to think about. Realistically, I knew I could, and easily. I could work remotely from wherever I was, and I’d only been in Wilding for a matter of months, not long enough to put down deep roots, but enough to know that I had found true friends. The idea of starting over again wasn’t all that appealing, even if I knew I wouldn’t be completely alone.

Étoile’s behaviour was puzzling me too. She’d already made several phone calls this morning, but each time, she’d been extra careful not to be overheard.

Just prior to the wolf’s pack arrival, Kitty mentioned that Étoile had also been trying to force a vision, to see if she could glean any information from a glimpse into the future. It wasn’t an easy job to do, especially when she was so far from her sisters and their mutual power boost. A little part of the old me slipped through, thinking it was crazy to even think in terms of that. Sometimes the witch life was a real mindblower.

“Maybe we should pre-empt them?” I said after I swallowed the last bite of bagel that Kitty had toasted and offered around. I spread it with a thick layer of cream cheese that was sticking my mouth together. “Go to them, force them to tell us what they know.”

“They might not know anything,” pointed out Étoile. “And pushing them might have the opposite effect.”

“Such as?” I asked.

“There might be more of them here. It’s unlikely they’d send two unprotected humans to confront a witch, especially if they suspect you have help.”

“I guess.”

“The best thing to do is make sure you always have someone with you,” added Étoile, reiterating yesterday’s agreement. “We’ll make it difficult for them to approach you again.”

I hated to point out the obvious. Having someone watch my back was reassuring, but it certainly wasn’t tenable. We all had jobs, none that involved babysitting me. “For how long? This can’t go on indefinitely.”

“Maybe you should rethink what we discussed? It might be time to leave Wilding for a while.” Evan’s voice was low and concerned, and not at all full of snide satisfaction. I knew from the previous night that he wanted to go home, but I knew he wouldn’t force me. We agreed to discuss our future living arrangements, though now really wasn’t the time. There was too much weighing on my mind. Sighing lightly so as not to offend him, I sipped my coffee again and avoided his eyes. Much as I didn’t want to admit it, he probably did have a point. Texas might be safer, but I’d be on the move again and I wanted to fight for my corner. I had to stop running some day or I could be running my whole life.

“Then at least, make sure you’re not alone,” Evan added. He and Gage exchanged looks. They might not exactly have formed a friendship, but there was an uneasy truce when it came to me. Although it seemed to run more along the lines of “be nice when Stella is around,” all bets were off when I wasn’t looking. I wasn’t an idiot. I could tell they had their issues, and unfortunately, they all centred on me.

When I first arrived in Wilding alone, not knowing what happened to Evan, Gage and I flirted with the beginnings of a relationship. However, all that had gone out of my mind the moment I knew Evan was staying. I had yet to confess to kissing Gage when Evan once stormed off in anger, not long after returning to my life. It had been a weak moment for me, one I did my best to forget, but I knew things could be infinitely worse if I confessed. I wasn’t used to keeping secrets and this was one that gave me some trouble, until I refused to think about it anymore.