The Witch's Consorts: The Complete Series, page 88
All the teenage experiences I’d never had. “Which did you prefer?” I asked.
“Not either of those. I used to imagine where I’d take you, if you came back and I could see you again, even back then. There’s a spot along the river where there’s not really enough room for people to park for it to get popular, but if you go at the right time you can see the moon shining in the water and the crickets get going… I used to drive out there just to think.”
“Always by yourself?” I teased, even though my heart pinched at the thought of him with some other girl.
“I was saving that spot for you,” he said, his voice so low it sent a tingle through me.
“And are you going to show me what you imagined we’d have done out there?”
His smile grew. He leaned over and cupped my face, tipping my jaw up to meet his kiss.
It was the first time we’d kissed since he’d come back to me, but it felt as sweet as always. The moment his mouth brushed mine, I didn’t know how I’d ever get enough of him. I ran my fingers into his hair and kissed him harder, as if I could mark him with so much love and desire it would hold this happiness with us forever.
A pleased sound reverberated from Gabriel’s throat. He met my passion with his own, his lips coaxing mine apart so our tongues could tangle, his hand slipping down over my neck to my chest. He traced the curve of my breast through my clothes, and I arched to chase that contact. Even that muted touch left me shivering with need. To feel him everywhere, to claim him, to remind myself how much he was still mine—and how much I was his.
Gabriel eased back just far enough to say, “Back seat?” in a breathless voice. I nodded and scrambled back there with no further encouragement needed. Gabriel’s side bumped the seat as he followed, and he winced, but before I could ask if he was okay, he was there with me, lying me down on the leather seat beneath him as he kissed me again.
Our mouths crashed together hot and hungry, and his thigh slid between my legs with a rush of delicious friction against my core. Like another day, another car, when we’d collided in a haze of longing until Gabriel had wrenched himself away from me.
Maybe we were writing over more than one painful memory today. Remaking every moment he’d pulled back, replacing them with this expression of his desire.
He broke the kiss to tug my shirt up over my head, and I yanked his off in turn. His hand dipped beneath me to unhook my bra as we fell back into each other. His mouth branded mine, and his fingers teased my nipples into peaks. His thigh rocked against my core until I was gasping. He bent over to slick his tongue over my breast, and I moaned, clutching his head.
When he slid lower, my grip tightened. “No,” I said. “I want you here with me.”
Gabriel looked up at me, understanding gleaming in his eyes in the dim light. He undid my jeans, and I kicked them off at his tug. Then he was leaning over me again, his lips finding mine for another searing kiss.
He caressed one breast and then the other through that kiss and the next and the next, until I was squirming with need, my whole body burning with pleasure. My hands skimmed up and down the hot solid planes of his chest. I rocked up to let my clit brush the bulge in his jeans, and he groaned against my mouth.
I jerked his fly open, and he helped me peel off the jeans between breathless kisses. A shudder ran through his body when I trailed my hand over his erection.
“You’ve always been the one for me, Rose,” he murmured. “You always will be. No matter what happens. No matter what you do. I was meant for you.”
“And all I want from you is for you to be here with me,” I said, choking up.
Gabriel kissed me with the same heat as before but so tenderly I thought I would melt. His thumb stroked over my clit through my panties, and I whimpered. He kept up that gentle teasing, drawing quiver after quiver out of me. An ache filled my core. I needed him filling me.
I wrenched at his boxers, and we wriggled out of our underthings together, almost toppling off the seat in the process. A giddy giggle escaped me before he caught it with a kiss. His lips trailed down my jaw to my neck as he slicked the head of his cock over my clit and down.
He gripped my hip to urge me up to meet him in the cramped space. I clutched his shoulders, and he slid into me with one smooth movement.
A shaky sigh slipped from my lips. I rocked to meet Gabriel’s thrusts, urging him deeper, harder. The heady friction radiated through every nerve. I wanted to feel him everywhere, so deeply I could never forget this moment, even if it couldn’t completely write over what had come before.
“Rose,” Gabriel groaned, plunging far enough that the base of his cock grazed my clit. I arched up, seeking that contact, trembling as the wave of sharper pleasure rolled through me again. He pulled me tight against him, and with his next thrust ecstasy burst through my body. I gasped, my toes curling with it, and Gabriel bucked even faster. His fingers dug into my hip with an enjoyable pain as he spilled himself inside me.
He sagged over me, not quite leaning his weight on my body, and a jolt of concern broke through my joy. “You didn’t push yourself too hard, did you? Your injury—”
“I’m fine,” Gabriel said gently. He eased himself down beside me at the edge of the seat and kissed me. “Straining that wound a little was worth it to start other ones healing.”
Emotion swelled in my chest. “Yeah,” I said, and traced my fingers up his jaw to return that kiss. I was pretty sure I’d be able to drive this car again now. Though maybe not without blushing the first few times.
We cuddled there for a little while, until the awkwardness of the cramped space crept in. Then we eased ourselves upright, exchanging fond glances and smiles as we fumbled back into our clothes. The moment I was dressed, Gabriel pulled me onto his lap and kissed me so thoroughly I was tempted to undress all over again. I reined in my desire.
“You should get some real rest now,” I said, tapping him on the shoulder.
“You too,” he said with a bump of his nose against mine. “It’s been a longer day for you than anyone else.”
I kissed him one more time before he headed up the stairs to his apartment, and then I crossed the yard to the manor to rejoin my other consorts, wherever they’d ended up in the house.
The hall was quiet when I came in. I could give Imogen that call now. I’d just started for my purse where I’d left it on the hall table when the stillness was split by the jangle of my ringtone.
My heart stuttered as I grabbed my phone. Was it the Justice Division calling me in for questioning already? At least I could hope if they were going to arrest me outright, they’d have simply shown up, right?
The number that came up on the screen had the Portland area code. I braced myself and raised the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Lady Hallowell?” a voice said, so rushed it took me a moment before I recognized it. “This is Gwen Remington. We met earlier today on the Frankfords’ property. How much exactly do you know about these demons?”
I blinked, groping for my balance. This wasn’t how I’d expected any call from the Assembly to go. “I, um— A little. Not much more than what’s in the Frankfords’ files. Why?”
“A little is better than nothing,” she said. “I think we’re going to need your help. The creatures have broken through their portal.”
Consort of Light
The Witch’s Consorts #5
Chapter One
Rose
I hadn’t expected that I’d be making my next trip to the Witching Assembly building with all my unsparked consorts at my side. I definitely hadn’t expected we’d be making the trip in a chauffeured limo. But here I was, tucked into the back seat between Gabriel and Damon with Seth, Kyler, and Jin across from us, noticing every bump of the wheels as the sleek vehicle raced along our country roads toward Portland.
We understand there have been many recent attempts to harm both you and your consorts, Gwen Remington, the high-ranking Assembly official who’d called for my presence, had said on the phone. It’s in everyone’s best interests to ensure you arrive here safely. And witching society wasn’t very good at doing things by half measures. So, a limo it was.
I guessed Remington saw me as some kind of valuable property now. My consorts and I were among the few who’d known about the demons lurking at the edge of our world, other than the witching families who’d secretly summoned those demons and gained strange powers from them. I couldn’t blame her if she didn’t want to trust the criminals. If the demons had really broken through the portal on that cliffside just a few hours from Portland, like Remington had said, then all witching kind and unsparked too might be screwed if we couldn’t come up with a solution fast.
“What exactly did the Assembly say has happened out at the Cliff?” Ky asked, leaning forward with an intent expression on his freckled face. He had his phone out in his slim hand, poised as if to take notes from my answer—which maybe he was planning on doing. My computer-aficionado consort never met a topic he wasn’t ready to research. “How did the demons get through the portal now? What are they doing?”
“Not much, so far,” I said. “And it sounds like there’s only the one demon actually out. Remington said they suspected its escape had something to do with that guard of Frankford’s who fell over the Cliff… That maybe her death gave a boost to their powers.”
My voice dropped for the last bit. The guard had fallen because she’d been pushed—by the witch who was coming to the Assembly with us, Thalia Ainsworth, sitting in the front seat next to the driver right now.
Thalia probably couldn’t hear me through the privacy screen anyway, but I didn’t want to make her feel guilty. She’d been through enough already. The faction that had been negotiating with the demons had gotten their hooks into who-knew-how-many witches whom they’d forced to use magic to keep the creatures in line. Thalia had been having her spark drained like that for years, maybe decades. It’d been hard enough for her to go anywhere near the Cliff. She’d only shoved the guard out of the way with a spell because the other woman had been about to attack Remington.
“Is that a common thing?” Jin asked, tipping his head to the side. “Death affecting magic like that?” He’d been more involved in the actual magical side of my life than any of my other consorts in the last few weeks, using his artistic skills to paint glyphs I could imbue with protection spells. His lithe fingers were still stained with different colors that hadn’t quite washed off after his last painting session.
“That kind of release of energy—it’s bound to have an effect,” I said. “It’s not something we usually explore very much in witching society, though. Harming animals, let alone people, for the magical gain is against Assembly law. The closest I’ve ever gotten is burning plant materials.”
“But it’s not as if a bunch of demons are going to take the high road,” Damon muttered, tucking his arm around mine. His dark blue eyes flashed. “If the thing I saw in that cave even has a concept of morality.”
“Probably not,” I said. “But we still have to be careful how we handle it. We don’t know how the demon’s going to respond to… well, anything we do.”
Damon grimaced, but he didn’t argue. He did have a habit of jumping into a fight full-throttle without thinking things through a whole lot in advance. Something we’d chided him for plenty of times in the past. But sometimes that passion did work out in our favor.
“Anyway,” I went on, “the one that escaped hasn’t caused much trouble yet, from what Remington said. It’s kind of meandering across the area just east of the coast, pretty slowly, like it’s getting its bearings. It’s knocked over a few fences and burned some patches of grass, but thankfully there aren’t a whole lot of people in that part of the county. The Frankfords chose an isolated spot for their secret dealings. We just can’t assume the demon is going to stay that passive.”
“And we don’t know that more of them won’t push through too,” Ky said.
“Exactly.” I worried at my lower lip. “The bindings on the portal itself might be weaker than they used to be. My dad made it sound as if they needed me to make sure they could keep the demons contained.”
“Hey.” Gabriel squeezed my knee reassuringly, shifting his weight to offer even more of the warmth of his body. “This isn’t your fault in any way, Rose. The Frankfords and the people with them were turning those witches into slaves. None of those women deserved that. You definitely didn’t.”
“I know,” I said quietly. As much as the thought of my father brought a flare of anger into my chest now, sometimes it was still hard to believe that the man who’d raised me, mostly alone, could have been planning that kind of fate for me—even though he’d admitted as much to my face when we’d finally discovered what the Frankfords’ faction was hiding on the Cliff.
But Gabriel sounded so confident, like he always did, that the pinch of guilt over my potential responsibility faded. That faction couldn’t have gone on like it was. We’d had to find a way to stop it. The problem had just gotten a lot more complicated.
Seth frowned where he was sitting next to his twin. The two of them would have been identical if Seth hadn’t kept his tawny hair cropped shorter than Ky’s wild curls and his body bulked up with regular work-outs and the labor he did for his dad’s renovation business.
“How is the Assembly going to feel about the five of us being there with you?” he asked. “I know they weren’t all aware of the Frankfords’ vendetta against us, but they’ve still been punishing—maybe even murdering—witches who got into relationships with guys from outside your community, haven’t they?”
“I don’t know how many people in the Assembly knew about that part either,” I said. “Ky, you found those records in some super-secret section of their network, didn’t you?”
Kyler nodded. “It was blocked off inside an already secure part of the Justice Division’s files. Definitely not full-access to all the employees.”
“So it’s not an open policy. But we will have to be careful.” I twined my fingers with Damon’s and squeezed. “That’s part of the reason I insisted that they accept you all coming with me. If anyone was going to try to hurt you, it’d be a lot easier for them to do it when I’m hundreds of miles away. And pretty much everyone in the Assembly is going to see our consorting as strange. After all, everyone working with the Frankfords has been destroying evidence of these kinds of relationships in the past, attacking anyone who crosses that line… I don’t even know how far back that goes. Maybe even before they started dealing with the demons.”
Why? Just to take as much power and choice from witching women as they could? Did they envy our magic that much? My stomach twisted at the thought.
“They need us right now anyway,” I added. “They’ve got a much bigger problem, and no one else who can help the same way. And they can’t exactly sweep our relationship under the rug—it’s pretty out in the open now.”
“Some of them will come around,” Jin said. “Your one aunt and your cousin—that whole branch of the family—they were totally welcoming.”
“Yeah.” I wished I had them here right now too. But my aunt Ginny was on the other side of the country, and Remington had immediately vetoed the idea that any of the other witches staying on my estate come with us. For now, we’d like to limit exposure to those already well-exposed, she’d said. My cousin Naomi had stayed behind with one of the witches who’d come to me for help after her family, aligned with the Frankfords’ faction, had tried to force a corrupted consorting.
“Whatever happens, we’ll be there with you the whole way,” Gabriel said.
Damon shot him a dark look. “Says the guy who hasn’t been here most of the last two weeks?”
“Hey!” I said before Gabriel had to defend himself. “We know why Gabriel left. He was looking out for us even if he wasn’t nearby, even if we didn’t know it at the time. I get that you didn’t like it, but we have bigger problems now too. We have to stand by each other—be a united front.”
“I’m ready to take them on: Assembly, demons, whatever,” Ky said with a grin and a mock salute.
Damon let out a ragged breath, but he slumped back in the seat at the same time. “I am too,” he said in a resigned voice.
Gabriel ducked his head close to mine and brushed his lips over my cheek. My pulse skipped a beat at the tender gesture. It had been a rough time without him—thinking he’d left because I’d horrified him in my attempts to push back against the Frankfords and their allies. But maybe I’d needed that pain to remind me of the witch I wanted to be.
My newest consort had only just come back to us today. I believed him that he wouldn’t leave again, but it might take a little while before my heart completely recovered.
My head felt too muggy to process much more information or emotion right now. It’d been a long day, and we’d already made the trip between my estate and the Cliff twice. Earlier today I’d had to fight for my life and the lives of my consorts. I’d been looking forward to curling up in bed for a nice long sleep.
Instead, I snuggled closer to Gabriel, setting my head on his shoulder. “I think we should all get as much rest as we can. We’re going to want to go into this situation clear-headed.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Seth said, propping his arm against the window as a sort of pillow. Ky yawned and stretched his legs out as well as he could in the space between us, his foot coming to rest against mine. I let my eyes drift closed.
Impeding demon battles and all, I was so worn out it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before I was out like a light.
The jerk of the limo coming to a stop woke me up. My head had slid down to Gabriel’s chest—he had his arm around my back, his own head tipped next to mine until the second he snapped awake too. Damon shoved himself upright, his fingers still twined in my grasp. The guys across from us rubbed bleary eyes and yawned. I didn’t think any of us had gotten close to a decent night’s rest.
