Zurlo, Michele - Torment [Daughters of Circe 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) (18 page)

The words hit Shade like a fist in the gut. He reeled from the force of what she implied. When he told her he wanted her, he never meant to coerce her into thinking she had no choice but to barter her body for her sister’s safe return. He had simply wanted her.

“I didn’t mean…” Oxygen wasn’t obeying his attempts to breathe it in. He took a deep breath and tried again. “I never meant for you to think you had to sleep with me in order for me to find Riley. If you had refused me, we would still be here, Torrey. I would still be searching for Riley and I would still teach you magic. You’d likely spend time fending off my attempts to seduce you, but I…”

He ran a hand through his shaggy black mane of hair. There was no good way out of this bind. “Damn. I’m sorry.”

She stared at him for a full minute without changing expression. The sun rose and set in that time. Finally, she shook her head. “Then why are you helping me?”

How could he answer that and retain his credibility? How could he tell her she was the woman he loved and lost when she didn’t remember a single thing? He struggled to find an answer for too long. She turned away from him, heading deeper into the woods. Night had fallen too completely for her human eyes to be able to see where she was going, though Shade could see with perfect clarity.

In less than a second, he caught her, caging her in his arms. He pressed her back to his chest and dropped his head to her shoulder to hold her close. “Please don’t be angry with me.”

Something in his tone grabbed her attention. Maybe it was desperation. “Is it because of Hope?” she asked. “Is it because I remind you of her, or is it because she was sort of a sister of mine?”

Shade inhaled deeply, memorizing her scent. It wasn’t the same as Hope’s. That was something he would never have the occasion to smell again. Torrey was the future. She asked for honesty. He wasn’t sure she could handle complete honesty, so he settled for something in the middle.

“You are like Hope in some ways, but you’re different in more ways than you’re alike.” Lifting his head, he turned her to face him. “At first, I agreed to help you because of her, because she would have wanted me to help you, but that’s not why I’m helping you now. That’s not why I’m going to teach you how to fight a werewolf. That’s not why I refuse to give you to Soren.”

Hope, fear, and more fear flashed through her eyes. “You can’t refuse.”

“I will kill him before I let him harm you.”

She stared at him. “But he’s your brother.”

It would kill Shade slowly from the inside, eating at him until there was nothing left, but he couldn’t let Soren take her from him. Not again.

Shade’s nod was brief, and he didn’t feel the need to explain himself. He knew she understood his conflict but not his decision.

Turning her toward the east, he bade her raise her arms, palms up. “Call the power of nature to you, little witch. Let it build up inside.”

She struggled for a few moments, and he knew it was because she was debating whether to pursue her line of questioning or to give in to his directive. The dormant magic that sputtered and sparked the previous evening roared to life. He watched as her aura turned from a glow to a blaze.

“You used force against me last night,” he said, careful to keep his voice a whisper. Interrupting a novice witch’s concentration wasn’t a wise move. “Do you remember the position of your hands?”

Torrey’s eyes focused on her hands. Energy streamed to them, concentrating there. “Palms facing out,” she said with a brief nod. “I pushed you.”

Shade jerked his head in the direction of a large white pine twenty feet away. The circumference of the trunk was about four feet. Branches full of needles ringed the top near the forest canopy. “Push it over.”

He felt her hesitation. Destroying nature went against a witch’s nature. “I’ll help you restore it when we’re finished.”

With a brief rotation of her wrists, Torrey changed from peace to force. The tree lifted from the ground, ripped from the roots to hover in the air. Slowly, gently, it fell to the ground with a minimal disturbance of the surrounding trees.

Torrey’s arms dropped to her sides. “I’ve never done anything like that before. The feeling, the power… It was incredible.”

The skill she displayed after only a day left Shade speechless. He wondered if Daughters of Circe became more powerful with each pass through life. It might explain why Hope was willing to die. Perhaps she knew she would come back stronger.

Pushing away thoughts of the past, Shade nodded in the direction of the tree. “Replant it.”

Concentration showed in the strain on her face. She turned her palms skyward to draw more power. The massive tree trembled, and so did Torrey. He wanted to reach out, to lend his strength, but he held back. After all, there was nothing he could do to increase her power.

He watched, silently urging her on.

Torrey felt like rubber. The ligaments and muscles holding her knees in locked position gave way. She collapsed to the ground. Shade made no move to catch her.

At first, his inaction irritated her. How could he have shown such affection and care for her all afternoon as he prepared dinner and talked her through the basics of spell casting?

Then she realized she needed contact with the Earth. If Shade had kept her from touching the ground, energy wouldn’t be flowing through her, replenishing what she used to rip the tree free without damaging the roots and lay it down gently.

The spell itself was nothing she hadn’t already known. Showing her how to call forth the power to accomplish the feat had been the key to activating her powers. Shade had done all of that, just as Caiden assured he would.

Heat invaded her body, beginning with her shoulders. Shade’s large hands rested on each one. He rubbed her tired muscles.

“How are you feeling, little witch?”

From the beginning, he’d used it as a term of endearment. After reading Hope’s diary, Torrey knew it was his term for her. She wondered what Hope had looked like, and she wondered if she reminded him of Hope. Did that explain why he was helping her? Did he mean her to be Hope’s replacement?

“Torrey?” Concern edged his question.

Turning to him, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m okay. That was draining. I don’t think I’ll be able to put it back tonight.” She stared over her shoulder at the fallen tree. Closing her eyes, she reached out to it. Tingles rushed through her system, carrying messages from her senses to her brain and assuring her the tree would survive while she recharged. “It will be alright until tomorrow.”

Shade followed her line of reasoning. “It might take a few days for you to recharge, little witch. What you did tonight was spectacular and it took much from you. There is no shame in needing to rest after expending so much energy.”

Something shimmered on the other side of where the tree had been. Its width had blocked the sight before. Pointing to the reflection, she tugged on Shade’s shirt until he looked where she wanted. “What’s that?”

A cocky half-grin lifted one corner of his mouth. “That, little witch, is a spring-fed pond. Would you like to swim? The water would do you much good.”

Though his arms were around her, and his heat flowed into her, Torrey shivered. “It’s the end of October. A little cold for swimming.”

Shade shook his head as he released her. “Trust me, Torrey. I’ll keep you warm.”

She took the hand he offered. It enveloped hers with searing warmth. The temperature in the mountains, under the canopy of the trees that blocked the earth from absorbing heat during the day, was decidedly cooler than it had been next to that little stream they watched the night before. Now that the sun was gone, so was the ground’s feeble attempt to radiate heat energy.

She wanted to curl up in his heat and not think about who he imagined he was touching. The crunch of dead leaves under their feet silenced the chittering of the small critters whose hiding holes they passed.

The trees cleared abruptly, revealing a small body of water completely surrounded by forest. It was hidden, a secret unknown to man and not meant to be discovered. Torrey stood at the edge of the water and took it in, using all of her senses to feel the sacredness of the area.

Eyes closed and face turned to the inky sky, Torrey breathed deeply. “It’s beautiful, Shade. Completely lovely.”

“Yes,” he said. “Completely.”

Something in his voice betrayed the drift of Shade’s thoughts. He wasn’t looking anywhere but at Torrey.

Opening her eyes, she saw her guess had been correct. He wasn’t her first lover. He wasn’t the first man who made her feel sexy and alive. But he was the most intense. Something behind his eyes made his attentions seem much more significant than anything Torrey had ever experienced. She liked feeling as if she were the only woman in the world who mattered to this incredibly handsome, untamed man.

His blue eyes matched the night sky where the stars showed. Feeling every inch the femme fatale, Torrey stepped away from Shade and let her sultriest smile play over her lips. He was frozen in time. Even his breathing seemed to have stalled, waiting for her next move.

She hadn’t tried to be enticing before, but she did so now. Kicking off her shoes, she peeled away her socks. The shirt was next. She lifted it slowly, inching upward to reveal smooth flesh. Her body was long and lithe. He drank in every millimeter. Torrey felt as if the bright light of day revealed her flesh, not the moonless night. She dropped the shirt to the ground.

“Lovely,” he said. His whisper carried on the breeze.

Her jeans followed. She wasn’t sure how to take them off in a way that was sexy, so she settled for quick instead. Straightening, she stood before Shade and let him look at her. Heat blazed from somewhere deep. Torrey knew she was playing with an element she couldn’t master no matter how hard she tried.

Part of her liked the danger. It thrilled her to know he would be wild in her arms no matter what she did. Fleetingly, she wondered if it was wise to tease him like she was doing.

The distance between them vanished. She thought Shade might plunder her mouth, rip away her underclothes, and throw her to the ground.

But he didn’t kiss her.

He barely touched her.

Those hot hands brought their heat to her waist. She sighed and shuddered.

“Cold?”

She wished he was breathing the word into her collarbone, fanning her skin with his moist heat. Her nod was brief.

His hands smoothed over her stomach and around to the small of her back. Circles widened, both under and over her skin. Panties and bra fell away, and his hands were there, too. “I want to know your body, Torrey. I want to know just how to touch you to make you quiver and tremble for me.”

She was on fire and he had yet to kiss her. One hand slipped between her legs. Intrepid fingers parted moist lips. Torrey gasped. Until now, she had refrained from touching him, from crossing the line he seemed to have drawn between them. Now her fingers dug into his arms, breaking all the rules.

Shade’s arm came around her waist. The coarse denim of his jeans chaffed against her inner thigh. His fingers swirled around and rubbed across her clit. Knots coiled low in her abdomen. She bit into his shoulder to muffle her moans.

The arm around her waist came up, and his hand threaded through her hair to pull her face away from his chest. Surprised, Torrey stared up at him.

“I want to hear you, little witch. I want to hear your sighs and moans and screams. I want to hear you say my name, and I want to see the way your eyes glow when you come.” His voice was low, hypnotic, and demanding. Silver with desire.

The pressure of his fingers on her clit increased. She thrust her hips against his hand, riding the heat and absorbing the sparks he generated. She controlled the pace. Faster and harder, she ground into him until the frenzy stripped away all control.