Midnight Magic, page 158
“N-no,” I whimper, but the door crashes shut behind us, drowning out my plea.
The music and celebration gets louder as we approach. No one says anything as Kiernan drags me across the crowded clearing—they don’t dare intervene.
I try to break free of the punishing grip he has on my arm, but it’s no use. I’m no match against him, and even if I could somehow beat him in a fight, Kiernan wields magic. Magic that can freeze me in my tracks. Magic that can make it impossible for me to fight or run. Magic that can cause me immeasurable pain or bend me to his will. Magic that can defeat a full-fledged wolf... let alone a newly selected witch who can’t cast a spell.
My fear intensifies with each passing second. I keep waiting for Kiernan to stop and make an example of me, but he leads me down a path into the depths of the forest.
Soon, all I can hear are crickets and rustling trees. Branches crunch under our booted feet as Kiernan leads me down the well-worn path. My insides turn to lead as ice courses through my veins. As much as being tortured in public scares me, being tortured in private scares me a whole lot more.
I should have killed myself while I was in Alpha Reiker’s pack. I should have done it the moment I found out I was a witch. Why did I convince myself there was something better waiting for me? Why did I let myself hope?
I whimper in fear. We’re far enough from the celebrations that no one will hear my screams. And Kiernan isn’t Alpha Reiker. What if he doesn’t get tired of punishing me? What if he puts me through endless torture, day after day?
I prepare to fight until the bitter end—Kiernan’s magic be damned—when a log cabin comes into view. Moonlight filters through the trees, casting it in a light that somehow makes it look both beautiful and terrifying. A place of dreams and nightmares.
Kiernan leads me across the clearing, pulls me inside the cabin, and slams the door shut. We’re plunged into darkness, and he begins to recite a spell. I wait for the torture. The pain. The punishment.
A fire comes to life in the hearth instead.
I start to sag in relief when I’m finally able to see my surroundings. A small room. A tiny wooden table and two chairs. A wooden chest. And a giant bed that takes up the remainder of the room.
Kiernan turns to face me and it dawns on me that there was always one punishment that Alpha Reiker’s mate suffered that I never did. The mating. And there’s only one reason Kiernan would bring me here. To make me submit.
CHAPTER 4
Kiernan
“Wh-what are we doing here?” my mate asks, looking around my room.
I lock the door behind us, looking over my broad shoulder at the raven-haired goddess staring around my—soon to be our—bedroom. She nervously pushes some hair behind her ear and scans the room, from the ceiling to the floors, taking in every last inch of this place.
“You know why we’re here,” I say.
While I tell myself I have brought her here to seduce her to get information out of her, I can’t stop the natural urge inside me to want to touch her out of my own selfish desires. Have I really brought her here for that?
All I want to do is question her endlessly. If she wasn’t my mate, I would’ve tortured her with magic back in the coven to get her to admit that she is a spy. Darcy doesn’t trust her, and she isn’t acting like normal recruits do.
But…
When she turns back toward me, I step closer to her and inhale her natural herbal scent sharply. She smells like the woods mixed with the meadow that I grew up training under my father in, something that reminds me of all the pleasures in life rather than the pains from wolf attacks that we’d been in lately.
She smells safe.
As I take another step in her direction, she inhales sharply but doesn’t move away. I stand inches away from her, desperate to touch her body, to feel a spark of excitement rushing through us both, feeling the power of our magic together for the first time.
“Mating,” she whispers, gnawing on the inside of her cheek.
“Mating,” I repeat, mirroring the softness in her voice.
Guilt rushes through me, because it isn’t all because of mating. Darcy’s words strike a cord inside me from earlier, and I find myself desperately wanting to get close to her but extremely weary of her.
I brush my fingers against hers, and the feel of her smooth skin sends fucking shivers down my spine. Everyone told me that the smallest touches from a mate will do someone in, but they never said it would feel like this.
She might tense at our fingers touching, but I don’t want to pull away. I can’t. This is the first time I’ve met her, the first night that I have seen the person that I will spend the rest of my life with, leading this coven together.
Desperate to touch more of her, I move my fingers up her bare forearm. Small goosebumps rise on her skin, but she doesn’t pull away nor tell me to stop. Does she feel it too? Does she feel the magic exploding between us?
When I reach her shoulder, she sucks in a sharp breath and tenses.
“Tell me that you don’t want this, and I’ll stop,” I whisper, trailing my fingers along her fragile collarbone to the column of her neck. With every breath she takes, they become sharper and shorter, but she doesn’t look up at me. Not once.
I gently grab her chin in my hand and lift it, wanting to see her eyes again, wanting her to show me that I am just as much her mate as she is mine. Still, she stares at the center of my chest, swallowing and seeming even more tense somehow.
When she still doesn’t look up, a single thought lingers in the back of my mind. What if she doesn’t want to look up because she is hiding something from me, something that she knows I’ll figure out as soon as our eyes meet again? What if Darcy is right about her being a spy for the wolves?
Because… her skin is softer than it should’ve been if she trains with the Steelpaw Pack physically. She should have calluses on her fingers and a scraped and bruised body. She shouldn’t be so small and tender as she is.
“Look at me,” I whisper.
After another moment of silence, she finally takes a swift glance up at me.
Merely by my magic, I sense the power inside of her, the need, the rush of emotion she experiences when our eyes meet yet again. She quickly looks back down, but the force inside her grows stronger by the second.
She sucks in a sharp breath and inches her thighs closer together. “I… uhm…”
A low growl escapes my throat, and I find myself aching to claim her now. I want her more than I want anything else in my entire life.
I need to get closer to her, but I don’t want to lose the little trust she seems to have in me right now. I need to figure out what this secret she seems to be holding back on me is, if she is really a spy for the Steelpaw Pack.
Grasping her hips, I pull her closer to me and sink my nose into the crook of her neck. I inhale sharply and slip my hands underneath her shirt, feeling her skin against mine and the power swelling between her hips.
“Kiernan,” she whispers. “I-I don’t know…”
“Hmm?” I murmur into her ear, ceasing my hand movements but keeping my fingers on her skin. I don’t want to pull away from her and don’t want her to pull away from me either. I want everything that I have been searching for to finally be mine.
While she might be tense, she inches closer to me. I force myself to hold back, to stay in control, to not rip every piece of her clothing off right now and take her. She doesn’t know who she is playing with.
“Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop,” I say.
But she doesn’t tell me to stop.
Instead, she moves closer to me again and brushes her knuckles against me. “We just met,” she whispers, staring down at the floor between us. “I want to, but I… I don’t know if I can do it without…”
“Without what?” I ask softly.
Though I want an answer, she shakes her head and doesn’t give me one. She drops her hand from my body and intertwines her fingers together. “You wouldn’t understand. We just… we just met and… I don’t know.”
She can look away, pull away, and deny this all she wants.
But the benefit of magic is that I can sense the power within her. I can sense her charged emotions, her body aching to be touched, caressed, worshiped like it has never been before. And if it has been, then I’ll kill whoever has done it.
Breene is mine. All mine.
CHAPTER 5
Breene
“Tell me to stop,” Kiernan orders.
Is that what he wants? For me to deny him? Does he want me to struggle and put up a fight so he can dominate me? Does he feed off the pain and suffering of others, the way Alpha Reiker always has? Or does he think I can’t do this without disappointing him?
I shake my head in denial. He isn’t Alpha Reiker. He told me that he would stop if I asked—and he sounded like he meant it. I want to believe him so badly.
Kiernan runs the back of his hand along my cheek, his knuckles rough against my skin, his touch gentle.
“Your skin is so soft.” His whispered words are barely audible over the crackling fire.
He runs his hand along the collar of my shirt, slipping it briefly underneath to graze the tops of my breasts. I gasp.
Kiernan pulls back. Then he does it again.
He’s gentle with me. Teasing. Like he’s got all the time in the world.
I tremble before him, unsure of what he might do next. It’s too hot in the small cabin, and my heart is racing so fast it might just leap out of my chest. I’m so nervous, but, surprisingly, not afraid. If Kiernan wanted to hurt me, he would have. He wouldn’t be touching me like he is afraid to hurt me… or staring at me in a way I don’t think anyone’s looked at me before. Like I matter.
“You’re so beautiful, Breene,” he says.
His words send heat rushing up to my cheeks. No one’s ever called me beautiful—except maybe my mother, when I was a little girl, and she was still alive. It’s been years since I’ve felt anything but hideous. Like the failure Alpha Reiker’s always made me out to be. But standing here, in this fire-lit room, with Kiernan’s eyes roving over me, I feel like so much more.
I let myself take in the man to whom I now belong. He towers over me, his shoulders broad, his skin tanned. His long, braided hair falls around his shoulders and looks even more red in the firelight. His ceremonial robes—made of bright red fabric the color of blood—billow around him, revealing hints of the colorful sweater and trousers he has on underneath.
He tucks a strand of my raven hair behind my ear and runs his calloused fingers down the side of my neck. Why is he being so gentle with me? I’m not used to it. Not used to being treated this way. For a split second, I worry that he’s a cat toying with a mouse... and that this is all a game.
Fear takes hold, but Kiernan slowly pierces it, bringing me back to reality. With each gentle touch, I relax a little more. I’m not used to it. Not used to physical contact that doesn’t come with pain. Tears prickle my eyes as I revel in every caress.
I’m used to my body feeling hungry. I’m used to my body feeling pain. But I’m not used to pleasure. Especially not the kind of pleasure that only Kiernan can give me.
He runs his calloused thumb along my lower lip, and I gasp. Heat courses through me at that one simple touch. When he does it again, a pleasurable moan slips past my lips.
“Kiss me,” Kiernan orders.
He could claim my lips, but he’s letting me claim his instead.
I’ve never kissed a man. Never met one I could trust enough to kiss. One who hadn’t already hurt me at one time or another at Alpha Reiker’s command.
But I crave it now. Kiernan’s kiss. The feel of his lips against mine.
Before I can think better of it, I stand up on my tiptoes and press my lips gently against his. Our mouths touch, soft and gentle, and I let out a content sigh as I pull back. Kiernan stands stock-still, like we’ve got all the time in the world, and I work up the courage to kiss him again.
He doesn’t rush me. He doesn’t urge me to do anything I’m not ready for. But he returns each kiss, letting me take my time exploring his mouth. I raise my hands, not quite sure what to do with them, and rest them on his biceps.
I can feel the hard muscle beneath my palms. I should be terrified, but I’m not. I want to run my hands all over his body. I want to explore every part of him. I want to know how the rest of him feels.
I press my lips more insistently against his, and Kiernan runs his tongue along the seam of my lips. I let out a gasp, and a wave of heat courses through me. Kiernan takes full advantage of my parted lips and slips his tongue inside.
I never imagined a kiss could feel like this. That a man could set my body on fire. That a man could make me want him.
I moan and kiss Kiernan back for all I’m worth. He lets out a growl. I have no time to react before he starts walking me backward across the room. My mate—my once sweet, gentle mate—backs me up against the cabin wall and pins my hands above my head.
Just like that, the heat that’s come to life inside me is replaced by ice-cold fear. One second my palms are resting softly on his biceps, feeling his warm skin beneath mine, and then his hands are wrapped around my wrists, his grip rough. Punishing. Pulling my hands up. Pinning them. Holding me in place.
Claws. Blood. Ripping flesh. Pain.
Memory after memory after memory flashes before my eyes.
Rope. Chains. My wrists bound.
“No. Please. No.” The words escape before I can hold them back.
I can’t run. I can’t escape. I can’t fight back.
The dam breaks. And I start to cry.
CHAPTER 6
Kiernan
Breene bursts out into tears, loud sobs escaping her lips. I immediately drop her wrists from above her head and back away from my mate. Why is she crying? What has happened to her? None of this makes sense.
“Wh-what’s wrong?” I ask, not wanting to hurt her more if I have.
Maybe I held her too roughly or she hit the wall too hard… Maybe I moved too quickly with her. Does she not feel the same way that I do about her? Maybe she feels guilty for spying on her mate…
Still, it doesn’t add up to me in this very vulnerable state of wanting to claim my mate but not knowing—nor understanding—the truth behind her. Why would my mate act this way? What is going on with her?
If she is a spy, maybe she thought I wouldn’t think she is one if she cowered and cried and acted as if she feared me more than anyone here. Still, why would a spy act this outlandish? How would they know to act this way?
It seemed like… this isn’t a carefully crafted reaction but one learned.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs, holding her hand over her face. She doubles over, but holds herself up by posting a hand on the bed. She sits on the mattress and curls her knees to her chest. “I’m so sorry.”
“Breene…”
What is going on? What is she sorry for?
When I take a cautious step toward her to comfort her, she cowers away and throws her arms over her face to shield herself from me.
“Please,” she sobs, scurrying off the bed and stumbling into the table. She loses her footing and falls back on her ass. “I’m sorry. Please, don’t hurt me. Please, don’t hurt me!”
“Hurt you?” I repeat, confused.
While she doesn’t elaborate, the pain and her reaction says it all. My stomach twists. I clench my jaw and stare down at her, realizing that something has scared her, someone has scared my mate, and whoever this someone is will pay for it. I will make sure of it.
After watching her cry for a few more moments, I realize that I don’t have the first idea of what to do. Should I hold her? Would she even let me? Should I step out of the room and leave my mate alone? Would she think of that as rejection?
If I am a crying, sobbing mess and my mate left, I would think so.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say, crouching down to her level.
I want her to look at me, to peel her fingers back from her face so I can show her that I am not a threat to her at the moment. I need her to open up to me, so I know that she isn’t lying to me, that how she reacted is real.
Once I come to a decision on what I need to do, I gently pat the mattress next to her. “Stay right here. I’m going to retrieve some water and another blanket. Don’t move, okay?”
Breene clutches herself tighter, brows furrowed together, and nods.
I don’t love the thought of leaving her alone, especially after what Darcy warned me about earlier, but I want to calm her down. Just seeing her so riled up and upset makes me all jittery and anxious.
This is not how I imagined meeting my mate would go.
After exiting the cabin, I shut the door behind me and walk to the closest coven building that has a communal kitchen for a glass of water. My sister, Kiera, is standing at the doorway, chatting with a couple of warrior mages about the recent wolf attack and about… the new recruit from their pack.
Either Darcy said something or Kiera found out through the coven gossip.
“Is it true?” Kiera asks, following me to the sink.
I pour a glass of water for Breene and glance over my shoulder, not really wanting to have this conversation right now. I told Darcy to keep it quiet because sometimes coven gossip got way too out of hand. But someone else must’ve recognized Breene as being from the Steelpaw Pack.
“Is what true?”
“Come on, Kiernan,” she says. “You know what I’m talking about.”
Pressing my lips together, I shut off the sink and walk back toward a spare closet where we keep heavy blankets to soothe panic attacks. They don’t happen often in the coven, but we care about each other, unlike the Steelpaw Pack.
“Yes, it’s true. She’s from their pack. I’m still trying to figure her out and will let you know what I find when the time comes. For now”—I toss a blanket over my shoulder—“don’t say anything to anyone.”
