In the Company of Witches(54)

“I need to close the circle,” she murmured.

He released her so she could do that, bid farewell to the elementals who had gathered. He could feel their presence, see their auras, see their slow melting back into the sky, the earth, the forest. The flutter in his peripheral vision had likely been Fae spirits.

There were whole alternate realities in the peripheral vision. A human might see a dragon there, but when he turned in that direction, he would see only a bush shaped a certain way. The dragon was there, however. Right beyond the grasp of the known senses.

He wasn’t surprised the Fae had come to her circle. Raina had the appeal to call up every fantastical creature he knew. Except the unicorns, who stubbornly refused to respond to anything but flaxen-haired virgins.

Their loss.

When Raina completed the circle closing and turned to him, he had her robe in his hands. He slid it over her shoulders, made a quiet noise for her to keep her hands at her sides, and then freed her hair from the collar himself, letting it spill loose and wild over his fingers. Looking at him for a long moment, she retreated to a flat-topped rock he assumed had served as her altar in times past for more concentrated spellwork. She used it now as a seat to steady herself as she began to braid her hair. When a moth fluttered across her nose, she wiggled it to dispel the itch, the passing sense of silken dust. It made him smile. Dropping to a squat near her, he tented his fingers on the ground. “Pretty thing,” he observed.

“The moth?”

“You. Braiding your hair.”

She paused, then kept on with the braiding, but he noticed her rhythm was less smooth. He’d made her self-conscious, a surprise. “No one’s ever called you pretty?”

She nodded. “I’m beautiful, sexy, mesmerizing. Pretty is…comfortable. Emotional.”

Intimate, familiar. She didn’t say that, but he knew that was what she meant. Ironically, neither of them hesitated when it came to physical danger, but they were both overly cautious creatures when it came to emotions.

“Pretty is a word a lover uses when he sees more than your outside,” he said. He curled his hand around her bare foot, rubbing his thumb on the arch, then bent and kissed her toes. When he looked up, he could tell he was discomfiting her. Good. He intended to do more of that.

“You are beautiful, sexy, mesmerizing. But right now, you’re pretty. When you sleep, you’re pretty. Soft. The other morning, when you were about to go downstairs, Cathair was nattering at you for a treat. You sucked in a breath, rolled your eyes, but you went back and gave him a plum from your fingers while you talked to me. It made your hand sticky, but you waited until he finished. When you bend over to look at something on your desk, you pull your hair to the side. When you pass the hall tree mirror, sometimes you make a face at yourself.”

“You’ve been watching me.” She’d stopped braiding. Reaching up, he unraveled the braid, combed it back out the way he liked it, pressing against her knees as he did so.

“Since the very first moment. There’s a girl there, along with the woman. I like it.”

She didn’t smile. “I see the boy in you as well,” she said. “The one who crushed nuts for my sundae.”

She touched his face, but it was more query than caress. “Men will do romantic things when they’re infatuated, in lust, but they don’t go out of their way on the small things. They go for the grander gestures to seal the deal faster. It’s a very primal game. But you bought peanuts because it was nice, and you thought I’d like it. You have a soft side, Mikhael, a side that likes to please a woman emotionally as well as physically.”

“I’ll deny that to maintain my reputation.”

“Doesn’t change the truth of it.”

“Also doesn’t change what I am.”

“No. It doesn’t.” Drawing a breath, she slid from the rock. Sensing the mood shift, Mikhael rose, facing her.

“Give me the truth, once and for all,” she said, a steadiness to her gaze that belied the tension he sensed in her. “What is this, Mikhael? You came here to do a job, and, after it’s done, you’re leaving. Yet you’re courting me. You’re stirring up emotions. You say I’m not a project, the way Ruby was, but what other purpose can you have for drawing me out this way? You say it’s different for you, but how am I supposed to believe that, knowing who and what you are?”

“If you’re looking for a guarantee, Raina, I can’t give you one. But I’m not playing a game.”

“I know there are no guarantees. You made it clear that your duty, your obligation, the oath you’ve taken, it comes first. So how do I fit into that plan? Or do you want me to believe you’ve become moony over a succubus, the madam of a bordello? Something so tainted that neither Hell nor Heaven claim it?”

“That’s not true.” His temper sparked, unexpectedly. “You don’t believe that about yourself.”

“I don’t believe it, but a lot of others do.”

“What I feel is what I feel. I want you.”

“Today, for a year? Forever? Or do you have a specific contractual term in mind? How long do I pencil you in for?”

Forever, if you know what’s good for you. He considered her, his brows drawing down. “You’re picking a fight for no good reason, so what’s really bugging you, Raina? This isn’t a fucking session with a client, where you orchestrate it based on their needs and hourly rate.”

She flushed, the green-gold eyes firing. “I didn’t say it was.”

“No, but you’re not defining it any more than I am. You’ve never had a male you couldn’t completely control. The bitch of it is, you’ve been looking for someone to take the reins your whole life.”

He stepped forward; she backed up, into the unyielding trunk of a live oak. When he slid a finger down her cheek, he pressed against the soft skin, made her feel that firm touch under her chin, down her throat so she raised it, swallowed, though her jaw was tight, the eyes still angry, uncertain. “That’s the real problem, isn’t it, Raina? You want someone to take control, but nothing scares you more, because you’ve been in a situation where they did all the wrong things. You can’t control how you feel about me, or how I feel about you. We’re not always going to be able to predict where that will take us. If you’ve never had that experience before, why is it so difficult to believe it might be the same for me?”

BECAUSE YOU’RE A DARK GUARDIAN. BECAUSE YOU’RE not saying it outright. Because I need to hear it and believe it. But Raina was too damn cowardly to ask him to say it. If he refused, she would feel like a cat who’d stepped out in front of a semi. If he did say it, and she heard the lie in his voice, she would feel like a whore in truth. She’d have to act like one to laugh it off, to take this back to safe footing, and that wasn’t where she wanted to be with Mikhael. She wanted to be real with him, now and always.

He was right. She was picking a fight over nothing, though it was motivated by something a lot larger. She was in a situation she didn’t know how to handle. While it had given her clarity, tranquility, for one moment, the ritual had also made her vulnerable, and reality was intruding, the ghosts of the past. It was all bubbling too close to the surface. She was going to say things, things that would give him the ability to destroy her. She was falling in love with him. She wouldn’t compound that absurdity by believing the same had happened to him.

“I need some space. I’m going back to the house.” She said it without anger, but he held her there, his voice low.

“Don’t let him keep you chained in that cage, Raina. Tell me what you want.”

Her throat ached, but she managed the words in a steady voice. “If neither of us is willing to put our feelings out there, then we’re not ready to trust one another. It’s too soon. Let’s leave it there for now. But I need…I just need to go. Let me go.”

She pulled free and did what she swore no man would ever make her do. She ran from him.





18



IT DIDN’T MATTER WHAT MIKHAEL MADE HER FEEL, how he unleashed those deep cravings in her to trust, to surrender, to submit. She depended on herself, remained in control, and that was how it was going to stay.

Despite the manic pep talk, she was shaking when she came in the house. Li was doing his yoga, his chest flat on the floor in a way that made her hip joints ache just looking at him. Straightening to his elbows, he sent her a thumbs-up. “Good timing. Bachelor party just pulled out.” Then he frowned, looking at her face. “You okay?”

She wanted to say yes, because she was the one who could handle anything. They never needed to worry she was going to fall apart or let them down. Damn it, it was just an infatuation. One that had gone beyond skin deep into the bones, such that they were rattling like a skeleton in its grave on a desolate, windy night.

A chill swept through her. Li snapped upright, his eyes narrowing, alarm spreading over his features. Raina turned toward the closed door, felt the vibration.

“Get down!” She spun, launched herself at Li and took them both back to the floor. The front windows exploded inward as she leaped, a million projectiles she warded with a fast shield that caught most of them. The rest buried into her flesh like tiny arrowheads, tearing holes in her robe, damn it. Her favorite ritual garment, blessed by more than a thousand full-moon ceremonies.