His Witch To Keep (Keepers of the Veil) (4 page)

She wouldn’t sleep with him again. Now or ever. Ordering herself to be a good girl wouldn’t work. The only thing holding her back, if and when he touched her, was his control.

Her head spun as she stood. She slumped back to her knees and cradled her pounding head. Damn this energy drain. It felt as if she’d lost a few pints of blood and then had a three-day flu.

This wasn’t the time for head pain or weakness. With an arm under his shoulders, she focused to shift them back to Alexi’s dimension.

Nothing happened.

She tried again but didn’t get even an energy sputter. Not good. Whatever just happened between them had healed him and left her depleted.

After a few rough tugs, she relocated him onto the nearby sofa. She retrieved scissors and cut the zip tie around his legs. Blood highlighted too many parts of his body. She wet a washcloth in the bathroom and cleaned the blood off his face. A few trips to rinse and wash finally had him acceptably clean. She threw a quilt over him and perched on the edge of the sofa next to him.

Unable to resist, she moved a few strands of hair off his forehead and traced the new wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He looked thinner than last year, but, wow, the man was beautiful. Chiseled cheekbones, generous lips. Ah, those lips. They knew how to make her scream. Okay, that wasn’t a memory she needed to rehash, not with the two of them alone, trapped in her alternate dimension.

A lump lodged in her chest. What would it be like to belong to this man? He’d be dominant and fierce, but the raw, demanding passion he offered in the bedroom just might make up for the level of testosterone bullshit she’d have to take.

With a head shake she pushed away those ridiculous thoughts. He didn’t want her for more than an easy lay and to play psychotic games, like today.

She massaged her forehead against the dull ache. Being trapped and sapped was a first.

As soon as she recharged, she’d jump them back. God, let it be before he woke up.

Chapter Four

A
lexi popped upright to a sit and massaged his head. He pushed off a quilt and swung his legs over the edge of the sofa. The chords of a vaguely familiar piano concerto drifted in from another room. He closed his eyes to assess his injury tally. Nothing hurt. He couldn’t detect the stab wound or chest cuts, and his ribs no longer hurt. Everything was fine. Was he completely healed? How many days had he been out?

He retrieved his phone from his tactical pants. Lebedev had been sloppy to leave it on him. The phone confirmed the same date he’d been taken. He’d only been out for an hour? No service. Still in the other dimension.

What had Serenity done to him? He hadn’t thought her a healer. Maybe she had more tricks in her arsenal than invisibility. Or maybe she’d shifted them back to the real world and called in her druid healer.

He gaped at his now healed abdomen, stunned.

Beyond miraculous vanishing injuries, Serenity had shown up at his death-bound altercation with Lebedev. Astonishment gave way to
it really happened
. He’d been up shit creek without a viable exit plan. First time for that. After Lebedev and his men worked him over for an hour or so, he’d almost accepted calling out to her hadn’t worked. But then she’d appeared like the beautiful, highly trained witch she was. What did he do with the knowledge they were that tightly linked?

Right now, he expected Hades’s voice to thunder in his brain, to berate him for his behavior. To order him back to work. He waited.

Where are you?

Nothing. Hades wasn’t in his brain. Maybe he didn’t function in Serenity’s other dimension.

He closed his eyes and sighed in relief, enjoying the peace of being alone in his body for the first time in…he couldn’t remember how many decades. He’d been barely thirteen when his uncle died and he’d inherited death reaper duty. After a few seconds, he glanced around what he assumed to be Serenity’s house.

The house’s craftsmanship and architecture suggested early nineteenth century Western European, but the appliances were modern. The flat-panel TV in the other room confirmed no time travel. Just another world, like good Superman versus alternate universe Superman? A dimension? He’d read about it in the OLM archives but barely believed it possible.

Everything around him was well maintained and clean. The decor didn’t equate with what he knew of Serenity. He flicked a crocheted doily ornamenting the side table, which sat beneath a copper-foil stained-glass lamp. She never seemed particularly frilly. Efficient, streamlined, and high quality, yes. The ornate fixtures and lavish oil paintings, no.

The aroma of food drew him from his musings. He pulled the edges of his shirt together and stood. Only the top button remained from where Lebedev had ripped it open.

He made it to the bathroom, used the loo, and then stared at himself in the mirror. The Russians had slammed his face numerous times, but not a single bruise remained. Not even a healing laceration where he’d been sliced. He picked at a small crust of blood above his eyebrow. The hand towels were missing in here. She must’ve cleaned him up.

She kept her back to him when he entered the kitchen, but the stiffening of her spine alerted him she knew he’d arrived. She poured batter into an iron waffle maker. He admired the delicate line of her neck to the spaghetti strap top and downward to the silky PJ pants.

She pivoted. Her eyebrows shot upward. Her eyes scanned down his body. “Are you…okay?”

“Better than I expected.”

Her cheeks colored as she quickly turned back to the waffle maker. He should demand she return them to his dimension now, but she’d healed him, cleaned him up, and now cooked. That intrigued him.

“Let’s have breakfast. You can go into the sunroom. I’ll be there in a minute.” She pointed at a doorway that led into a glassed-in room. She plopped a finished waffle onto a plate with several others. Although she turned toward him, she didn’t meet his gaze. “Go.”

He wanted to ask what she’d done to him but noticed her hands trembled, even if her voice was even. Whatever happened had shaken her, whether it was how she’d found him or what happened after.

Her gaze met his, and her chin notched up with a defiance that had every inch of his body rock hard. He moved toward the glassed-in room, lit by the red hues of dusk.

She set the plate of waffles on a round table, disappeared into the kitchen, and brought back a plate with silverware and a cup of orange juice for him. She slid a waffle onto the plate and set it in front of him. Without smiling she nudged the butter toward him. “They have the best butter here. There’s this woman up the road that makes her own.”

He sipped orange juice and then buttered. Waffles? No one had cooked for him since…maybe ever. No one had done anything remotely caring for him since his mother died when he was thirteen, not that she’d cooked much. Making toast had been a miracle for her. Technically, Serenity hadn’t cooked for him. But she was sharing.

“If you’re doing this, then you must experience the full package.” She reached across and dribbled a bit of syrup on his waffle. Her secret smile sent a spike of lust through his gut. Was she weaving some sort of magic spell?

He cut off a small piece of waffle. When it touched his tongue, his taste buds exploded. A groan of bliss escaped. His cheeks heated. “These are good. Thank you.”

Silence rested between them while they ate and watched the sun set across a seascape he’d only seen on postcards. Given the rocky coastline, he guessed this to be Scotland or Ireland. Hues of orange and yellow reflected off the ocean and rocks. While he sipped juice, birds skimmed the water in the waning light. The place might be beautiful and relaxing, but his mind churned.

“Did you
plant bogus information on me about mental instability that led to my decommission from MI6? Someone did…” She sipped her orange juice without meeting his gaze.

She wasn’t ready for that answer. Or maybe he didn’t want to ruin the moment by throwing gasoline on the embers of her itch to fight.
“What did you do to me? Everything is…healed.”

“You’re alive. That’s what matters.” She darted a narrowed-eye, irritated glare his way. “Why can’t you ever answer one goddamned question I ask?”

“Are you a healer?”

“No. I have no healing skills. You had an issue. I fixed it. I saved your ass. Again.”

“What do you mean by
again
?”

“Israel? Two years ago. Three Spaniards. Rooftop. Ringing any bells?”

He grumbled, “You distracted me.”

She slid a second waffle onto his plate and started buttering a new one herself. “What? A big boy like you couldn’t handle a little distraction?”

“Little distraction? You had your hand on my cock and your tongue down my throat. I call that a pretty big distraction.”

“I shot the two that would’ve put one between your eyes.”

“Then I had to chase that third bastard for twenty minutes.”

She smiled and shrugged. “At least it was memorable.”

“You could say that,” he said softly.

“Did you call for me today?”

“I theorized you might be able to hear, if I signaled. Now we know the answer to that theory.” He’d wondered many times over the years about this. Until now, he hadn’t the balls to test an improbable concept.

“You set yourself up for potential death today just to test a theory? Can you tell me how it’s possible I picked up on your need for help?”

He frowned, not used to answering questions from anyone. Evasion was his mantra. Finally, he shook his head. “Tell me what and who threatens you.”

“I’m handling it.”

Someone did threaten her. A ferocious protectiveness swept through his mind, inciting the need to annihilate whoever terrorized her. He hadn’t realized how much he hoped her behavior was over a private job, but such random carelessness wasn’t her method. The woman he’d protected in the shadows for over a decade didn’t do hasty. Meticulous and cautious, yes. “You are not
handling it
very well.” She needed his help. Her denial of her need for his assistance meant he’d still be ignoring Hades’s dictates to follow her.

“It’s none of your business.” She glared his way. “Stop stalking me. Tell me how you got yourself in that situation.”

“You do realize I took out three snipers at Belauger’s before any put a bullet through your skull. I also hacked into his camera feeds to erase the few that caught you.”

Her cheeks paled. “I had it under control.”

“You would’ve been dead.” He leaned forward and uttered low. “If they’d caught you, you know what he’d have had his men do to you, don’t you? You’d have been painfully dead.”

“But I’m not.”

“Because I was there.”

She pushed up from the table and gathered dishes, disregarding the uneaten waffles. Her breasts heaved with the extent of her anger and frustration.

His mouth went dry as he stared at those peaks that threatened to spill from her skimpy top. He stood. How he wanted—needed—to touch her, to taste her. He dragged his gaze upward, finding an outrage in her eyes that made him even harder.

The flush racing across her cheeks and down her neck told him she recognized his hunger, even if she didn’t want to acknowledge the answering desire within her.

He grabbed his plate before she took it away. “I can get mine.”

“Give me the bloody plate.” She yanked it out of his grasp.

He blocked her exit. The rapid rise and fall of her breasts distracted him. An image of them naked, peaked, and begging for him tortured his mind. His accent thickened as he said, “You are not running away from me on this. You almost died because you were sloppy. What threatens you?”

“Move.”

He didn’t budge.

Her pale blue eyes smoked when they met his gaze. “Get out of my way.”

He crossed his arms.

“I don’t need your help,” she gritted out.

“Wrong. And you know it.”

Her foot swiped his shin. He grimaced when his leg caved, giving her enough space to slide past. He trailed her to the kitchen, where she rinsed dishes and loaded the dishwasher. She shoved the machine closed so hard it shook the glassware in the cabinets above. “I want you out of this house and out of my life. I’m going to get us back to the other dimension, then you are going to leave me alone—”

He caught her arm as she attempted to pass and pressed her up against the floor-to-ceiling support column with enough speed it stopped her condescending speech. His palm supported her chin while his fingers bracketed her jaw. Was her anger just about him following her and saving her ass? Or was this was about Bulgaria?

“The trouble with you is you don’t know when to admit you’re in trouble.” His gaze fell to her lips. Her mouth parted. Frustration and concern for her safety fled in the wake of his blazing need to remind her of the power of their attraction.

He kissed her.

Her body stiffened, but she didn’t knee him in the balls as he expected. His first kiss was barely a touch on her lips, a tease. It was nowhere near enough to assuage months of hunger for her. His lips swept over hers once more. A tiny bite on her lower lip caused her to gasp. He delved inside, slowly probing the recesses of her mouth. Damn. He’d forgotten how sweet she tasted. He deepened the kiss, and instead of pushing him away, her hands fisted the open edges of his shirt, holding him in place. Her tongue flicked against his, kissing him back. An answering growl emerged from deep in his chest. He released her jaw and pulled her tight against his body.

When he finally lifted his head, they were both panting. “You taste exactly as I remember. So sweet.”

“Why?” Her gaze was unfocused.

He shook his head, confused. “Why what?”

“Why did you leave me in Bulgaria?”

He pulled back slightly but didn’t release her. A knee-jerk reaction to avoid and deflect when interrogated had him saying, “Admit it,
ragana
. You need help.”

“You kissed me to distract me? God, you’re such an asshole. Let me go.” She struggled in his arms to get free.

Shit. Wrong thing to say. “Not a chance.”

“I hate you.”

“But you want me, and you need my help.”

“Only in your dreams.”

Damn it, he wasn’t handling this well. At all. “You want me. That is why everything about this makes you mad.” He kissed her again. Within seconds her whimpers of outrage changed to moans he interpreted as
hell yes
.

She tore her mouth from his and ran her tongue slowly over her swollen lips. One deep breath and the drugged haze of desire fled her eyes. She flashed stubbornness. This wasn’t a woman to give in to easy compliance. That drove his depth of need for her higher. He wanted her to remember how hot they could burn together. Selfishly, he wanted to burn inside her passion again. To feel alive and connected, even if only for a short time.

She rolled her head away from him, denying further access. “Stop.”

He kissed the open column of her throat. Her convulsive swallow registered against his mouth. “You want this as much as I do. You missed this. Admit it.”

“Please…” She hung her head. She swallowed. “Don’t force me to hurt you in order to get away. We’re not doing this again. I can’t…Alexi.”

The husky way she uttered his name in that proper English dialect lit a firestorm of want in his body.

She glanced away from him. “Let me go. Don’t push this.”

The pain in her eyes when they darted his way burned a hole in his stomach. She was right. This had to stop. He wanted these fleeting moments with her like a dehydrated man in a desert, but she’d misinterpret them as games. All he could offer her was short-term, even though that was far from what he wanted and not what she deserved. He’d had his one time, not that it came close to satisfying the need coiling in his balls and infecting his brain. A need that burned only for this witch.

What a mess. He had to step away from her. Right now.

Her eyes closed and didn’t reopen. The urge to kiss her again burned in his gut, but he held back. He released her and forced himself to take that backward step. “Take us home.”