Wicked Paradise (3 page)

Recalling Gwilym’s prophetic response sent her heart thudding against her chest. She was terrified of her new life sentence and her monstrous task.

“The demon’s prison has become my own.” Morgan hammered her fist on a clump of tiny leafed ground cover. She willed her heart’s beat to steady and her lungs to process the molasses-thick air faster. Knowing her father’s penchant for solving problems before they affected her, she believed he would have done all in his arsenal of magic to change the tide of destiny. She understood why he’d waited to divulge her mission until he had no choice.

Clasping her satchel and Gwilym’s leather pouch, she rose to her feet. A breeze kissed her face, salty and sultry. Perspiration dotted her temples, dripped between her breasts. She stripped off her stifling overcoat and wadded it into her pack. Morgan shook the twigs and dust from her skirt. The loathsome jagged scars across her lower belly itched from the sweltering air.

Power rippled beneath the ground, flowed over her feet. It sifted through her fire and air magic, filled her with earthy energy. Pleasantly startled, she let it penetrate, calming and cooling. She felt as if she floated on a fluffy white cloud overlooking a tropical paradise that belonged to her, in her. She dipped in and out of luscious rain forests, fragrant meadows, dazzling waterfalls, all awakening on the air currents left in her wake. Arms outstretched to capture the unusual, welcoming energy, she laughed and spun in a circle.

The old tales, along with Gwilym’s spoken and unspoken directives quickly plagued her momentary bliss. Unopened library tomes seemed to cram her head, throbbing behind her eyes. Except for the spells, recipes, and notations in the set of Mage’s Book of Secrets passed down from one generation to the next, she never understood the tales and prophecies painstakingly handwritten in the leather-bound journals. Some were so old and jumbled they made no sense. Dejection slumped Morgan’s shoulders, forcing her leaden arms to her side.

A shallow burrow of ferns in the woods caught her eye. She needed to rest and regain her sensibilities, to temper the magic roiling in the air, softly vibrating beneath her feet, becoming one with her. The island seemed to secrete power, similar to what she’d felt from the Sacred Stones. Pushing aside the lush foliage, she crawled into the viney nest.

“I may as well tie my wrists behind my back for all the will granted me in this life.” She slapped a dead flower off its stem onto the ground. “No! I will not let it defeat me...not the most powerful sorceress on Avalon!” She wanted to laugh at the incongruity of her situation—she was the
only
sorceress on
this
island. Exhausted, she leaned her back against a petrified tree stump. Her eyelids grew heavy in the blistering heat. A horrid memory hung onto the edge of her mind and she refused to name it or give it proper due.

Her body grew languid, and sleep came fast. The dream arrived quick and persistent...

Her dream lover guided Morgan over the misty meadow, her back molded to his muscled chest. His fingers danced across her flesh, scorching trails of fire up and down her body. They halted at the cliff’s edge, Avalon’s Sacred Stones holding silent vigil behind them. Molten lust deluged Morgan, leaving her boneless. Mesmerized, she possessed no will to resist the pleasure cascading over her naked body.

Desperate to feast her sight upon his face, Morgan started to turn in her dream warrior’s embrace, but his arms tightened into iron bands, forcing her to remain immobile. The burning fingers of desire suddenly disappeared, replaced by the scraping itch of ice. Invisible ropes shackled her wrists to her sides, and her power rose defensively inside her. A howling, evil laughter floated up, filled her senses with wicked shards of darkness.

Oh, hell. This wasn’t her dream lover!

Readying a spell, she wrenched on her magic. She managed to toss a ball of destructive Druid magic outward, bending it behind her. Her magic faltered, slashing into ineffective embers that evaporated on the humid air.

She struggled against the unyielding bands, drawing on magic that refused to cooperate. Malevolence seeped through myriad thorn pricks across her skin. An unseen force carried Morgan off the crag, and then released her. She drifted above the infinite aquamarine sea, the gentle spring winds carrying away her terrified screams.

A desolate landscape ate the vast waters, and fascination replaced her fear. Crumbled buildings crammed the arid land below. A golden spire remained standing, a stalwart beacon in the devastation. As she focused on it, grounding herself in the strange land, she began spiraling downward.

Panic clawed at her stomach. She never fathomed her life would end this way. As she beseeched the Goddess for a painless death, a fireball whizzed past her toward the cliff. Sailing through the air, she whipped her head around and watched the fireball strike a dark, cloud-like shadow on the meadow’s edge on Avalon’s cliff. The shadow wavered on the precipice, taunting and beckoning her at the same time. The fireball left a hole in its side, and the shadow demon’s piercing screeches echoed off the Sacred Stones.

Spurred into action, Morgan assembled her inner powers. Fire balled into a crimson and amber sphere on her palm. Bitter sulfur, tinged with sweet Druid magic, energized her. She flung her arm back and hurled her blazing weapon. Another fireball from behind her raced to meet hers. The two deadly orbs struck the shadow, exploding in brilliant golden light. A gusty, angry howl split the air before the shadow dissipated into harmless wisps.

Morgan’s body grew leaden. The ground sped toward her. Breath seizing terror overwhelmed her in a black tide. Seconds away from colliding with the tarnished gold spire, strong arms caught her from behind.

In an eye blink, they stood in a lush meadow surrounded by verdant tropical woods. Her savior’s arms wrapped protectively around her, her back pressed against his hard body in a perfect fit. Relief wilted her against her real dream lover’s chest, and she managed to blot out her near-death horror.

The air sizzled with their magic, danced together in synchronized rhythm. His fingers whispered across her skin, stopping before reaching intimate territory. Gasping, she clung to his muscular arm draped around her waist. The touch of his lips on the back of her neck sent shockwaves rippling across her shoulders. He showered kisses from her neck to her ear lobe, his hand splayed on her stomach, pressing into her as if he owned her. Her skin burned in the aftermath of his blazing possession, fire dripping off his fingers.

Without warning, his warm mouth retreated and his large hands spanned her waist. He turned her to face him, and she licked her lips in anticipation. Balmy ocean breezes stirred the air, swished her loose hair over his arms. Head dipped, she both feared and longed to gaze upon him.

With forefinger and thumb, he lifted her chin and her hungry gaze latched onto his face. Fair hair swirled about his head, mating with her black tresses. Gleaming with promise, his cerulean eyes held the ocean depths of summer in which she longed to soak her inflamed body. The uncertainty and angst rolling off him startled Morgan. She caressed the sculpted planes of his smooth, bronzed face, reached to slide her fingers into his thick hair. He caught her wrist, kissed her palm, his lips branding her skin with his heat.

A raven cawed overhead and landed on a palmetto next to them. The bird of oracles flapped its wings in invitation. A second raven dove from the sky and landed next to the first. Two sets of beady eyes watched, waited.

The warrior studied her as if to imprint her features into his memory. “Someday, little raven.” He cupped her cheek in his large hand. “I will find you,” he whispered.

Morgan blinked rapidly and the mists grew murkier. Her savior vanished, leaving behind two ruffled symbols of healing and death. The ravens cawed in unison. One flew to Morgan’s outstretched arm. The other disappeared into the fog.

Disoriented, Morgan awoke, desire quivering in her middle. She fully expected to gaze upon the meadows surrounding the Sacred Stones, the man from her dream beside her. But her cocoon’s hot, leafy shrubbery flung her back to the present on the strange island.

“Damnable dream.” She wiped the moisture off her forehead. Or was it her Sight? Her Seer’s Sight usually revealed itself in her dreams, but her Sight never left her feeling as if the vision was real, like the languid arousal tickling her middle, traveling lower. She snorted. “An event unlikely to ever happen to me.”

A wild animal roared, the fierce sound flinging the vision into the quicksand of her mind. Her pulse quickened. Another tree-shuddering roar rent the air. Morgan swallowed a scream. She pushed forward to peer beyond her haven, hiding behind the wide leaves. Strong memories of a childhood trauma stilled her heart for several seconds. She clutched her stomach where proof of an altercation with a wildcat marred her skin. Her frantic gaze darted left to right, landing on nothing but the steamy tropics.

A loud scrabbling clatter in the brush to her left sent her leaping into the open. Morgan summoned her fire magic, but only sparks sputtered from her fingertips, dying before they hit the ground. She tried two more times to no avail. Traveling through time and space from Avalon to the island had depleted her magic reserves. Unable to stifle her cry a second time, she searched for refuge, deciding the nearby sea was safest.

“Save me from this madness. Send me to the Afterlife now,” she muttered, feet flying toward the booming waves crashing against the shore.

Chapter 3

Ryan lunged at the wild boar, stabbing his wooden spear into the nasty beast. The animal squealed in agonized rage, sidestepping from the protrusion in its hoary body. It stumbled a few feet before sinking to its knees. Sometimes he hated using caveman ways to kill his food, but wielding magic wasted his power. On the flipside, he liked the exercise of thrusting, lunging, and jabbing the spear. It kept him in peak physical condition. The better to gut a demon he couldn’t kill with magic.

The grunting boar gasped out its last breath. Smug satisfaction chased a hot breeze down Ryan’s bare back, and his empty stomach rumbled in anticipation. Arms folded across his chest, he watched the beast convulse until it stilled. He swatted at the buzzing insects already drawn to the metallic tang of pooling blood.

Noon sunshine hammered him, drying the sweat on his brow. The sun magnified the pair of grayish-violet moons, and they hung brighter in the sky than ever. “Must be my lucky day.” He snorted, flexed his arms behind his back, taking grim note at the hypocrisy of his life.

Spiky plant shoots poked through the thin soles of his leatherleaf sandals. Scowling, Ryan inspected his makeshift foot coverings.
Time to pick through my leather scraps and make a shoddy pair of shoes.
He eyed the boar with speculation.

“Why fucking bother?” His urban feet were growing immune to nature’s torments. By the time he figured out a way off this freak-show island, he wouldn’t need caveman shoes any longer. The coven back home had scavenged a department store’s worth of shoes and boots from the corpses littering the land. He had plenty from which to choose from.

The blood’s coppery odor thickened in Ryan’s nostrils. A year living among the dead made him immune to that, too. He nudged the boar to ensure it was dead. As he bent to yank out his spear, a wild shriek disrupted the island’s incessant chorus of animals, birds, and insects. An odd prickle crawled across the nape of his neck, as though fate untied another knot in his lifeline, opening another freakish chapter. Tantalizing Druid magic edged the brackish breeze, sprinkled into his center of power, intensified the growling in his gut.

Multicolored birds flocked from the trees, flapping a swift getaway. Hidden animals scrambled through the jungle in all directions, snapping and thrashing the dense brush.

He’d lived on the island alone for two weeks, and it was the first time he’d heard anything resembling a human sound. Baffled and excited by the diversion, he tugged the spear out of the boar then sprinted in the direction of the scream.

It made sense that a new challenge cropped up that day. Earlier that morning, he’d sensed a change in the atmosphere, the presence of something untamed, of incalculable energy. All his senses had blazed with new life. After a restless night, he’d found himself mired in an erotic dream of a vivacious and beautiful sorceress from another time and land. It’d been so long since his mind filled with anything but death and annihilation, sorrow and sadness. Even now, hours later, the dream left him reeling. The bizarre sensation of the dream sorceress merging her magic with his had enhanced his desire. His pleasure had been so real, he’d awoken hot and sweaty, hard as steel, his fire magic bubbling inside his core. His body had thrown off a diffuse blue glow, which only happened when he wielded a certain kind of magic. Magic had simmered in the cool cave air, and he bristled with electricity from head to toes. Never in his life had he lost control of his power while asleep. It scared the hell out of him. Uncontrolled magic was easily stolen from the unwary. Losing control was too risky, and he mustn’t ever allow it to happen again.

The dream still disturbed him, though. He’d rescued the sorceress from near death at the grimy paws of a shadow-shifter Fomorian. The bastard acted like it wanted to kill her. Or did it want to mark her and make her its minion? He scratched his jaw, returned his reverie to the dream’s erotic ending, wondering why he’d voiced his wish to find her one day.

“What was
that
all about?” His snort turned into a wry chuckle. “Two weeks in paradise and I’m totally losing it.” His hands clenched. He wasn’t ready to admit to the sinking realization that the woman satisfied needs he never knew existed. They certainly no longer existed on a bleak, destroyed Earth.

“Who the hell is doing this to me?” Known for his impeccable level head, he sure as hell wasn’t allowing the madness inspired by a damned dream destroy his already messed up life. He had enough to deal with just surviving each day.