A Sensual Summoning, page 33
The afternoon light was bright behind the gauzy curtains, catching the kaleidoscope of shades in Faye’s hazel eyes when she turned her head back to look at him. His mouth found the corner of her lips, humor dissipating when she realized he meant it.
“What if I don’t want your heart to ever stop racing?”
Rafael groaned, an irreverent noise that had her flavor turning smokey in his mouth. Maker, just knowing his voice could do that to her. He willed his cock down from stirring.
“Then… fall in love with me so the knowledge keeps my heart pounding with excitement forever.”
“Mm, I like the sound of that…” He caught her smile in a kiss, her eyes half-lidded and gorgeous as they stayed on him, his own rolling shut when she scratched her nails down his scalp.
“Then do it.”
Rafael didn’t beg. But in that moment, he probably would have if she told him to. A neediness threaded his tone, his teeth tugging at her bottom lip in protest for making him this way.
Her laughter, husky and quiet with fatigue, erased any qualms about being in this situation.
Rather, he enjoyed the fact that she didn’t immediately offer up what he wanted even when he could see it shining in her eyes. He liked the challenge of a human, his human, making him work for something he wanted. Genuinely wanted.
“Ask me again when I’ve had a nap.” She turned in his hold, their noses brushing before she burrowed deeper under the blankets to snuggle into his chest. Dropping his hand to the back of her head, a light yawn laced her words. “And when I tell you that I love you… ask me again until you’re sick of hearing it.”
Chapter 63
She thought she’d dream of Raef.
That’s what it first felt like as she floated on her back down a lazily meandering river. Water lapping around her ears and the distinct warmth of sunlight on her face, refracting shapes and stars behind her eyelids that remained closed.
Everything was so peaceful. Until something brushed her hand.
Cold and fleshy, it startled her into opening her eyes, only to meet the opaque cloudiness of a corpses’ dead stare.
Shrieking, she pushed away from it and into another when she couldn’t take her eyes off the bloated body floating on the water. The tell-tale red hair clung to her face, the swollen discoloration making her sister unrecognizable at first.
Freya. Her heart howled, agonizing loss winding her as she splashed and staggered to the bank.
More and more bodies surrounded her as she waded away from her sister. Every one of them recognizable from her parents and Farah to classmates she hadn’t seen in years. They congested the river until she wasn’t sure there was any water left, wracked sobs escaping on her every breath.
The bank was too slippery when she reached it, fingers curling into soft mud that gave way the instant she tried to pull herself up. Her foot found a limb to push herself up, but the boost did nothing but leave her nauseous and helpless.
She kept trying, clawing the increasingly steep bank.
Panic clouded her rationality, unable to think beyond the klaxon of instinct to get out, get out, get out.
When a hand wrapped around her wrist, Faye wept. A cry of desperation when she thought her fate sealed. She gripped the toned arm of her savior with her other hand, tears blurring her vision as she kicked and crawled to get away from that river.
A film of death and decay covered her, making her cough as she trembled on muddy knees, her fingers in a frozen lock in the stranger’s shirt.
“Ah, so that’s what he sees in you…” Faye stilled, ice hardening her blood and stopping her heart when she looked up into sharp, olive eyes. “You are a vision on your knees.”
Marek stood above her, a merciless figure where thinly veiled contempt was offset by the mild interest one might show an insect they’d never seen before. Faye released his arm as if scalded, falling back on her behind, and kicked back a few useless inches.
A smile cracked his lips in amusement, the Necromancer straightening the arm of the crisp black shirt he was wearing after she crumpled it. The glint of a cufflink caught her eye, his long fingers fiddling with it fastidiously.
“We meet again, Faye Kyteler.”
Her eyes darted around her, looking for an escape. Her dream had become a confined tank. Every direction closed off by an endless wall of convulsing darkness that instinct told her would devour her if she got too close.
“Raef!” she called instead, ignoring the figment of his imagination.
She hadn’t been trying to enter his dream, but if she was here, then he was too.
One of Marek’s deceptively strong hands folded over her mouth, slamming her into the closest, writhing wall. Her cry was muffled by his palm, the Necromancer leaning down with a condescending laugh.
“Now, now…” He tutted, tightening his grip over her lower face to the point she feared he might break her jaw. “He can’t hear you. We’re too deep in your mind for anyone to notice. Perfect since we don’t want to be disturbed.”
“M-My…?” Speaking was a struggle under his grip, his strength inhuman even as she fought to free herself from him.
Her mind?
They weren’t in Raef’s subconscious this time?
Marek’s eyes gleamed when it dawned on her, his hand dropping to experience the dread on her face entirely. She didn’t even attempt to run.
“What—what are you…”
“Doing in your dream instead of Rafael’s?” he finished for her, Faye’s lips pressing together while the hairs on the back of her neck stood on ends against the disgusting, sentient wall behind her.
“It’s quite the bit of magic, if I do say so myself… highly risky, but just as rewarding when successful.”
His voice hurt her ears. Butter soft but containing infected blades that compelled her to cover her ears had the wall behind her not pinned her arms back, leaving her open and helpless to his theatrics.
“You’re just a dream.” Saying it grounded her, the witch regulating her breathing the way Raef always told her to better control what she was seeing. “It’s all in my imagination.”
A tranquil drop of lucidity fell onto the still waters of this dream, but what would usually result in her ability to wake up, instead sat atop it flaccidly. A barrier of thick, murky water that was usually crystal clear stopped her little drop of control from entering, her dream out of her hands.
“He taught you well…” Marek muttered, offering a dismissive glance of pity when he cocked his head at her. He looked so like he did in the forest, watching her cry in the rain. “But I’m no figment of your imagination, Faye. And I think you know that already.”
“It’s not possible.”
Raef’s dream then, wasn’t the first time she had encountered Marek. But in the real world, for a split second before Rafael showed up to bring her home.
She shook her head, a futile yank against her restraints doing nothing but adding to the Necromancer’s entertainment as he watched her work it all out. “You’re dead.” His humor fell at that, a dangerous iciness entering his gaze. “You’ve been dead for centuries!”
He didn’t like that, a decisive slap snapping her head to the side, her cheek aflame.
“Stupid girl,” he hissed, a flash of anger cracking the nonchalant shell of his exterior.
Raef had been right. Marek despised death.
“Your magic is so terribly weak; I’m not surprised you can’t wrap that silly little head around such things.” He almost sounded offended at her dismissiveness, her inferiority grating on his patience when he had the wall drag her back down onto her knees.
Tugging on the legs of his slacks, he crouched in front of her pitilessly.
“But shall I toss you a bone? Even worthless creatures deserve a little indulgence every now and then.”
Swallowing, she forced her eyes to remain on his. This was one person she refused to submit to. Marek took it as a challenge, but unlike Raef who only wished for her to submit to her own desires, she knew Marek’s form of breaking would destroy her entirely.
“Let’s see… how to put it simply,” Marek mused aloud, Faye bristling at his patronizing disdain. “You like flowers, correct? A humble interest, very fitting.”
In his hand, a dandelion appeared, its golden flower rapidly dying to be replaced with the fluffy seed head. A weed, just like him.
“What happens when I…” He turned the dandelion to blow the seeds, small propellors of white fluff dispersing in the wind until they disappeared out of sight.
Her jaw clenched, refusing to answer.
Obviously, before he died and many years after the man she encountered in the cottage offered her water, he was accustomed to people doing as he said.
That was when he clicked his finger, something from within the wall grabbing her hair to slam her head back against it hard. Pain burst behind her eyes, a pained “ah” leaving her to his delight.
“What happens, Faye?” He held her jaw up, basking in the pained fear she couldn’t hide quick enough.
“T-The seeds spread.”
“Not so stupid, then…” he crooned, Faye’s stomach roiling when he dragged the back of his hand down her cheek in faux affection. “All I needed was someone like you to meet my memory and poof… the seed spreads to another mind.”
“You… you lived on through memory?” She’d never heard anything like that before. She didn’t even know such a thing was possible, but by his arrogant glee, it was clear he had found a way.
The pale blue petals of the Atropos Tears in his lair registered finally. His death… fate, he changed it.
“I wouldn’t be much of a Necromancer if I couldn’t bring myself back from the dead, would I?”
“Then why wait? Why now, after all this time?” she argued, the possible disaster unfolding before her eyes too terrifying to consider.
“Should I tell you? What a secret to learn for so unremarkable a witch…” He speared his fingers back into her hair, a sting of pain resulting in his bloodstained fingers when he withdrew his hand again. “But in your forgettable existence, I suppose I can safely tell you.”
He leaned closer, until the rancid smell of death clinging to him choked her airways, his voice like venom dripping into her ear. “Because until now… the only ones with living memory of me, were all trapped in books. Until you opened my favorite.”
Faye’s head snapped back to put some distance between them, the gravity of his words not sinking in even as their resulting panic had her chest exploding with uncertainty.
Marek laughed, entertained by her reaction.
“Genius, isn’t it? The only downside was that this kind of necromancy required a host who knew me in life, not in death.”
The warlock sighed, as if centuries hadn’t passed and it was only a mild inconvenience. “It never crossed my mind that Daemons would abandon earth, by which point the humans who knew me had already perished before I could return.”
“Then, Raef…” Her stomach sank in realization.
“Why else would I keep him alive when I could just as easily absorb his power through death?” She gulped back the nausea, knowing what such knowledge would do to Raef who already held so much guilt on the topic. “He was, how do you call it nowadays? An insurance policy. One I can finally collect on.”
Faye’s mind was racing a mile a second, her breathing labored from pain and the possibility of Marek returning to the real world again. She couldn’t think. There were no solutions, no options available to her when he held even her subconscious hostage from her.
The helplessness didn’t scare her like it might have. It angered her.
It made her want to bury the man in front of her, take revenge on him for all he’d put Raef through. What he put her through by destroying magic on earth.
That was when it clicked. He wasn’t the only one whose living memory she encountered in Raef’s dream.
That split second of clarity allowed her to retake control while Marek boasted. All it took was a moment, for a glaive to pierce the Necromancer’s stomach before Erik yanked it back in a bloody ribbon of flesh, placing himself in front of her.
Blindsided, the Necromancer had but a second to stumble back before the large Daemon lifted the glaive, putting some distance between them. Growls permeated the air as he reached a hand back and the wall disintegrated in a scarlet glow.
“Go now, Faye. Wake up.”
Marek roared in anger, gripping his side as he stumbled back to his feet, a bloody smile chilling Faye to the bone as she turned towards the hole Erik created and pushed her way through.
“I killed you once before, angel. Don’t think I won’t do it again!”
She had just reached back for Erik when Marek attacked him before the wall of Raef’s chest moving under her met her eyes. Panting, the incubus jostled her to consciousness, his glowing gaze tinged with relief when she finally roused.
“Wake up, love. Something just triggered one of the traps.”
Chapter 64
He knew something was wrong the moment the door to Faye’s subconscious locked shut.
It might have passed his notice, had he not been awake while she napped, and the reverberant click pulled his eyes over to the door that no longer looked familiar. The margins were welded shut, turning the once pleasant door into a hermetic seal that kept everyone out and Faye locked inside.
When she whimpered, a torrid heat burned his tongue, the witch flinching as a burst of pain traveled through their link to the back of his head, disorienting him momentarily. He shook the dizziness away, all his attention fixed on her when he realized it wasn’t his own pain, but hers.
She trembled, curling tighter into herself when he tried to wake her.
“Faye, sweetheart… can you hear me?”
A familiar presence grazed the top of his spine, the hint of decay propelling his heart into his mouth and his actions turned urgent. Shaking her shoulders, Faye’s eyes moved rapidly beneath her lids, unresponsive.
He was ready to throw his weight against that fortress door to get to her when another sensation radiated up his spine in a bolt.
Something had triggered one of his traps; the ones Faye begged him to lay hoping it would alert them if more acolytes appeared.
“Fuck!” Rafael sat back on his heels, caught between sleeping in order to save his witch from whatever was attacking her dream, and protecting her from the very real danger of something that possessed the qualities to trip his trap. Magic.
He couldn’t just leave her. Not like this.
Trying again, he leaned over her small form, brushing the sweat off her brow. “C’mon, sweetheart, run. Whatever it is, you can outrun it. Follow my voice.”
A spike of pain coursed through him when part of his trap was destroyed, whatever was caught in its snare putting up a fight. He should’ve put more effort into them. More power. But he’d been letting his dick guide him, impatient to get back to the cottage as soon as possible that he rushed them.
He should’ve taken her concern more seriously.
No time for reproach. He shook his head, Faye’s face turning into his hand the only positive reaction he’d had so far, so he kept talking, the rest of his senses purely on the battle going on somewhere in the forest between his trap and its prey.
“Good girl, follow me now,” he rumbled in her ear, hoping the vibration could better direct her. “Don’t look at anything else, only me… I’m here.”
Moments later, Faye’s eyes burst open, her lungs starved as a gasp rattled through her body. A faint scent accompanied her consciousness, disappearing in the next instance as a whoosh of relief left Rafael in an exhaled, “Thank the Maker.”
That relief was short-lived when her eyes caught his, his stomach clenching at the naked fear he saw there. All he wanted to do was bundle her against his chest the way she obviously needed. But all he could afford to give her right now was a hard kiss to the forehead, his instinct torn when he stood.
“Faye, listen to me…” He folded his hand over hers when she bunched a hand in his shoulder, kneeling back on the bed to cup her face. “There’s something in the traps, I need to check it out.”
When he pulled her hand down from his shoulder to move around the bed, she followed, that same little bird imprinted on a predator as her pace quickened to catch up to his longer strides.
He said nothing until she tried to follow him out the front door.
“No, love. You stay here.”
She was only in what she wore to bed, a matching camisole and shorts. Definitely not the right clothes for winter in Scotland. Something had scared her. Enough to make her forget the way she was dressed as she protested hotly.
“No, I—”
Cutting her off with a click of his tongue, the incubus walled her in against the open door. He needed to make sure she was safe, no matter if it meant being the bad guy in her eyes for a time.
“Stay. Here.” He growled, his influence wrapping its way around her body apologetically for his tone. There was no time to convince her kindly, his resolve steeling even when it looked like she might cry or curse him out. “I can’t do my job if I’m constantly worrying about you out in the woods.”
Her small hand had wound tight into the hem of his shirt, a death grip she didn’t even know she held. Her lips parted, the taste on his tongue urgent but before she could say anything, she lost her nerve, dropping her gaze and her hand.
It left a disgusted ache in his stomach when she already struggled with opening up.
Later. He’d make it up to her later. For now, he had to leave her.
Letting his wings unfurl in a compression of dark energy, he didn’t look back as he sped above the treetops, the intruder not even half a mile away when he dropped to his feet in front of it.
“Stupid fucking plant! Let go of me!”
A woman’s voice caught him off-guard, but not as much as the vibrant red hair splayed out from the thick tail at the top of her head across the forest floor where she lay struggling with the roots that had erupted from the ground and were currently trying to drag her into an earthen grave.
