Slightly Spellbound (28 page)

The blanket, partially pinned beneath us, was like a snake coiled around us.

“Christ,” he swore, impatiently yanking the blanket’s edge to give himself room to maneuver. I laughed softly. He couldn’t hear me of course, but he felt it. “You’d better not be laughing,” he said, giving my butt a pinch.

“Ow,” I said, and treated him to a warning smack.

With the flick of a button and the
snick
of a zipper, he freed himself from his pants. The top of the blanket slid down and a bit of light exposed his mussed hair and the hollows above his collarbones as he poised himself above me. His eyes glittered sapphire and I lost myself in them. He really was better-looking than any guy had a right to be. I slid my hand down and curled my fingers around him. He sucked in a breath and then bent his head, finding my mouth and claiming it in a soul-searing kiss.

When our bodies locked together, I felt his magic and our heartbeats throb deep inside me. Neither of us moved, savoring the moment. We hadn’t been this close for so long, and I’d missed him, missed the feeling of his body against mine. My fingers traced his spine as his teeth caught my earlobe and bit down. I gasped and arched.

He laced his fingers through mine and pressed my hands against the armrest above my head. When his hips moved, he whispered Gaelic words in my ear and magic speared me from the inside out, making my body clench tight as a fist. My breath caught, and he nodded with a dark smirk.

“We belong to each other, Tamara.” With his breath silky and hot against my cheek, he said, “You hold my heart hostage, but I can enslave you, too.”

I struggled against him, testing his grip. He didn’t let me escape. The strength of his body and his magic bore down on me, like a summer storm battering a ship.

My body met his, reaching and recoiling, until the intensity was white-hot and almost unbearable, until every part of me belonged to him just as he’d promised. I shattered into climax with a scream he couldn’t hear. He certainly felt it. My body pulled his with me, love and lust and magic flooding me.

Afterward I felt as if I’d melted onto the couch cushions like the wax of spent birthday candles left too long to burn. He released my cramped hands, which dropped behind my head. Limp and panting, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to get revenge on him or give him a present. Maybe both.

He moved his lips along my jaw to find my mouth. “I love you, sweetheart,” he said, kissing my bruised lips lightly before giving my hip a squeeze and adding with a crackle of magic, “I’ll always fight to keep you.”

“Yeah, I love you, too,” I said. “But I’m going to make you pay for being so great in bed. As soon as I can move my legs again.”

He sat up and, with the blanket strewn across his lap, he dressed. I watched him, for once able to stare without being caught. He had good looks that were kind of mesmerizing, but I also liked the way he moved, with a masculine grace that emanated sexiness and hinted at the magic that could extend from his lovely tapered fingers.

I sat up, thinking I’d steal a few more kisses, but then the dryer buzzed. He glanced up with a frown, buttoning his shirt.

I climbed off the couch, draping the blanket around me and dragging it along.

“Tamara, be careful out there tonight.”

I turned and strode back to him. I gave him two quick pinches to promise I would take care and then added a kiss for good measure before I left him with his books.

It was nice to put on clothes that were hot from the dryer, but that cozy feel was short-lived. I dropped the blanket in the guest room and went to the kitchen. I braced myself as I opened the back door. I huffed angrily at the gust of cool air. It was frostily inconvenient to have to run around without a sweatshirt or coat.

I shivered and exited the house, deciding that I wasn’t going to have to worry about being killed by arrows or magic. I would probably die from exposure.

30

I JOGGED THROUGH the woods. Partly because I was in a hurry, partly because when I ran I felt less cold. I half-froze crossing the golf course. There was no protection from the wind.

I trembled and tried to keep my teeth from chattering. I didn’t want Skeleton Guy to find me by sound waves, like a bat or something.

North of the golf course, I entered the woods again, but when I crossed the small clearing it felt like my senses were muffled, almost like my ears were filled with water. I doubled back to the clearing and at a certain spot that I stepped across, my senses went back to normal.

“Witch magic,” a familiar annoying voice said.

I jumped and spun toward a nearby tree. Crux leaned against it. His neck was red and raw where Mercutio had torn it, but the flesh was nearly healed.

“You can’t see me. I’m invisible.”

He grinned. “You’re invisible to humans,” he said.

“And to witches and wizards,” I said, raising my fists in case he planned for us to tussle again. The soreness in my butt and back had gone away. I didn’t want Crux starting it up again with a bite or a thrashing. I widened and planted my feet.

“Witches and wizards are human,” he said, shaking his head at my ready-to-rumble stance.

With him still half-reclining against the tree, I felt ridiculous keeping my fists up, so I dropped them and straightened. “How come I’m not invisible to you?”

“Because you concealed yourself with fae magic, and being fae and stronger than you, I’m not affected by it.”

“I concealed myself with fae magic?” I asked, impressed. That actually made a lot of sense. I’d done a number of spells that were really simple but did powerful things. That wasn’t the way witches’ magic worked. To do a really powerful spell using witch magic, a person had to use a complex, tricky, and perfectly planned spell.

“Do you happen to know how I undo the fae magic that makes me invisible?”

“Sure.”

“Wait,” I said, putting out my hands. “I don’t want to be visible yet.”

“I’ll bet you don’t. You want to wait until you’re sure you’re past the lych.”

“The what?”

“The lych. The skeletal wizard you and your cat ran into earlier tonight.”

“How did you—?”

“I told you to turn back. You should’ve listened.”

“You
ordered
me to turn back. I don’t take orders from foreign faeries. America’s a free country.”

He rolled his eyes. “Freedom’s an illusion.”

“Since I got away from you and went on my merry way, freedom feels real enough to me,” I said, waving my arms to show how unchained they were.

His smile disappeared. “You escaped, but that doesn’t make you free. It just makes you a particularly slippery fugitive.”

“Hmm. I don’t agree with that, but you’re entitled to your opinion since America’s a, you know,
free
country,” I said with a defiant quirk of my lips.

He smiled, too.

“So undoing the invisibility spell,” I began. “Just how would I go about that later on?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Here we reach an interesting point in our negotiations. I have something you want. There are some things I want as well.”

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Such as?”

“An end to hostilities. I want you to offer me friendship and hospitality.”

“Hospitality?”

“I want you to invite me to stay at your home.”

My eyebrows shot up. “I live in a house full of witches. It’s got a bluebell plant spell that goes off like a fire alarm when a faery gets near it.”

He shrugged. “I can cut through that magic. The witch who laid the spell isn’t even here to reinforce it.”

“How do you know I’m not the one who put the spell on?”

He laughed.

I folded my arms across my chest, mirroring him. “You know,” I said in a faux sweet tone, “you’re kind of a jerk.”

“That I am,” he said, not taking the least offense at the insult, which was even more proof; only a really big jerk would agree to being one.

I waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t negotiate with jerks. And I definitely wouldn’t invite one to be my houseguest.”

“You’ll be stuck. Indefinitely invisible.”

“Nah,” I said, walking away. “The spell will rub off eventually. My magic’s kind of wobbly,” I said, which was true, but of course, the last time I’d made someone disappear and turn bite-sized, it had stuck really well. It had taken us weeks and a dangerous adventure to lift that spell. What if I stayed invisible for months? That would be a complete pain in the behind.

I stepped tentatively into the territory where my senses muted and then back. I squatted down, looking at the ground, trying to find a line or symbol marking the transition.

“It’s the lych’s magic.”

“It is? Is it poisonous?”

“Not to fae.”

“Well, that’s okay, then, right? Since I’m half,” I said.

He shrugged.

“What is a lych anyway?” I asked.

“If you offered me friendship and hospitality, I’d be very generous with information.”

“Yeah, you’re just the guy to help me out,” I said. “Rose-thorn-wielding, arrow-shooting, cat-threatening faery that you are.” I stood. “The truth is, Crux, I recently met an alligator who tried to swallow me in a single bite. He was more trustworthy than you.” I took a deep breath of fresh forest air before I stepped across the invisible line into the muted world of lych magic.

He chuckled. “The alligator’s in good company. Like him, I enjoyed the taste of you. Swallowing you in one bite, or several, would be a pleasure.”

Lecherous jerk.
I blushed, frowned, and kept walking.

“You can’t ignore me forever,” he called.

“You’re likely right about that,” I said. “Eventually, I’ll probably shoot you. Or run you out of town. Or both.”

He laughed, and that annoying sound was the last thing I heard as I ventured deeper into the heart of a sensory wasteland.

 • • • 

THE NIGHT FELT full of cobwebs, like my skin was covered in cotton candy. I rubbed but couldn’t get the film off. The air thickened and clogged my mouth and throat. I had a really strong urge to turn back before I suffocated, but buried somewhere deep in my belly was another instinct. It said to soldier on. It told me I was getting close.

I put my palms out in front of me as though pushing through muck, but then my feet stopped. I looked down at the edge of murky mud that my toes curled back from. Knowing how fond of mud my toes are, this struck me as weird. I inched back and crouched down, eyeing it suspiciously. I reached out and sank my finger into the grime. It was cold and heavy as death. I jerked my hand away. The tarry mess clung to my finger. I wiped it on the ground, getting as much off as I could in the damp grass.

I was not going through that mud, but the instincts that had carried me through the crossing didn’t want me to turn back. The marshmallow still warm in my belly drew me north. I squinted, trying to see through the dark fog. There didn’t seem to be anything in front of me. Just more of the same terrain that I’d come through, but I heard something through my clogged ears. I held my breath and cocked my head, listening.

Tweets.

In the distance, birds chirped.

Those little guys again. They’d been near Vangie’s hotel room, too. Were they watching over her? Like a fallen Snow White?

I had to go on, but I misplaced my hand as I tried to stand and it sank to the wrist in that lifeless bog. I didn’t have any doubt that if the mud pit was deep enough, my body would sink like a stone in quicksand.

I walked the edge, and it seemed to go on forever, like an unending line in the forest, like a moat as long as the wall of China.

Can’t go around. Can’t go across.

I glanced at a large tree.

Have to go over.

I climbed, my bare legs scraping bark. I paid them no mind. When I was around ten feet up, I crawled out onto a thick limb. Too bad Mercutio wasn’t with me. This maneuver was just his style. Plus, I think he would’ve appreciated my nimbleness. The limb grew narrow, but I balanced like a gymnast on a beam. Well, kind of. I didn’t walk out there on my toes; I inched out on my belly like a worm. A worm with hands and feet clutching the branch. Okay, maybe Mercutio wouldn’t have been that impressed.

At the end of the branch, it dipped toward the ground. I dropped off the side, dangling by my arms. I swept my toes over the dirt. Definitely not a Tammy-Jo-swallowing mud moat. I let go and landed solid.

I turned and stepped forward, feeling a pop. My ears cleared, the air thinned to normal, and the smell of gardenias and death hit me like a fist.

I let out a slow breath and tiptoed forward. A tent shimmered into view, like a desert mirage. One second there’d been nothing, the next a large white tent that could’ve slept at least ten people appeared right in front of me. Black sparrows were in all the branches of the surrounding trees. I narrowed my eyes. Not only weren’t the seaside sparrows extinct, Duvall and Dyson seemed to be infested with them. Why was that? I wondered.

I crept forward and turned sideways to move the tarp as little as possible as I entered the tent. There were half a dozen burning oil lanterns and in the center of the room, Vangie lay as I’d seen her in my vision, pale and unmoving.

Small feathers lay scattered around her, and clusters of wilting gardenias stretched from her waist to her throat. A crown of them had been placed on her head since I’d last seen her. Moving closer, I pushed the gardenias aside and found several small splotches of dried blood on her chest. I clenched my teeth. Somebody was in big trouble when I caught up to him.

I bent and touched her cool skin. Under her jaw, her pulse throbbed, though faintly. She wasn’t gray as she’d been in my vision. I tilted my head and studied her. Her skin was as white as a pearl and silky smooth.

I lifted her gown’s neckline and looked inside, finding a circle of thin cuts. How deep were they?
Not very
, I thought. They were arranged in a perfect little oval, like an Art Deco jewelry design. I imagined someone performing a blood ritual. What kind of spell had she been used for? I wondered with a shudder.

All right, then. We’re getting the heck out of here.