Broken Pentacle Read online

Oh, fuck. That little glimpse of her former personality, brash and bold and in control, simmered through him like an aphrodisiac, which was the last thing he needed at the moment. Counting backward from one hundred, he waited to speak until he’d regained control.

  “And I suspect my line is supposed to be, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ but given extenuating circumstances, specifically the fact that I haven’t done this in over a year and never with someone as wonderful as you…” Treading awfully close to dangerous sentimental territory there. “You’ll have to settle for, ‘I’ll do my best.’”

  “I prefer ‘Yes, sir,’ but I’ll go easy on you, given the circumstances.” Giving lie to her promise, she raised and lowered herself so rapidly that he lost his breath trying to keep up with the thrusts and counterthrusts, tilting his pelvis to bury himself as deep as possible every time she brought her hot, wet pussy down around him.

  The silver mist of his concealment sphere shimmered as his concentration broke and then dispersed completely. His body shook like a branch in the wind, and the sudden visual rush of having the forest unfold around them, sunshine filtering through the branches, undiluted by the cocoon of magic, left him dizzy and short of breath.

  “You…” Sky panted as she pressed hard against him, leaning forward and grasping his shoulders to create more friction between their pelvic bones. “Okay?”

  Alec couldn’t speak. Couldn’t frame a response. Instead, he reached out and drew her closer into his thoughts as his aura crackled around them like the white and yellow hues in the Northern Lights. He ached with the need to come, but he couldn’t let go. Not without the protective sphere of his spell giving him at least the illusion of security. And for the life of him, he couldn’t focus enough to call the mist back.

  “We’re safe.” Sky nipped his chest, sharp and hard. “No one nearby but the guards, Laura, and Zach.”

  His senses confirmed her conclusion. But still, some dark, wounded part of him fought release. Sweat slicked his brow, and his hair stuck to his forehead and cheeks, matted and damp. Sky reached up to brush a few strands away from his mouth, and the tenderness of her fingers brushing against his lips lent some degree of comfort in the midst of near panic.

  “Right.” She tangled both hands in his hair and held tight. “Me first then.”

  When she unraveled on top of him, her body and spirit uniting in the frenzy of her climax, he felt the alien heat, the unexpected sensations of spasms where he’d never felt them before, as her pussy clenched and released around his cock in rapid succession. Feeling through her ‑‑ being her, for those few moments ‑‑ his own body and mind gave up their bitter battle.

  Crying out in a long, guttural yell, he filled her with liquid heat, bucking against her as he succumbed at last to the fierce pleasure his body demanded. Fire and water and wind and fertile earth, lightning and storms, soaring birds and endless oceans, images fired through his brain in rapid succession as he shook beneath her like a wild man.

  Alec felt her thoughts brush his as he relaxed, spent, lying weak and shaken beneath her. Knew she’d experienced each sensation that rocketed through him, the bliss and the pain, along with the random images that flooded his mind.

  So close. He didn’t know how else to describe this, lying limp beneath her as she pressed drowsy kisses across his chest, still connected. Damp and warm.

  So safe. Her answering thought undid him, and he suspected that if he wasn’t drenched with sweat, she’d spot a tear or two.

  When she eased off him, he wanted her back, but before he could complain, she sat up and pulled his wrists until he eased himself upright, facing her. That accomplished, she wrapped her arms around his back. Answering her unspoken request, he embraced her and pulled her against his chest, her head nestled close, and her hair splayed out across his lap. Together, they rocked back-and-forth, each giving and receiving comfort in equal amounts.

  * * * * *

  As they made their way back to the cabin, Sky picked her way around stones and fallen branches. The earth felt soothing under her bare feet, and she held the leaf- and-soil-spattered blanket close around her to keep the bugs off. Alec had folded the other blanket in half and tucked it around his waist, and if the mosquitoes were bothering him, he didn’t say so.

  As they approached the cabin, Sky broke into a run. “Zach!”

  Flinging herself toward the injured witch, she drew up short at the last minute so as not to jostle him and settled for leaning down to kiss his forehead. He reached up to grab the back of her neck with his good arm and pulled her in for a lingering kiss on her lips. Alec nudged her aside to claim a kiss of his own, and the two of them settled on each side of him on the wooden steps where he sat.

  Sneaking glances at Zach, Sky decided he looked pale and weak, and the sight of his right arm bound in gauze up to the shoulder and secured to his side with a sling made her shudder. But all in all, he looked a hell of a lot better than he should. Leaning in to touch the head of the magnificent hawk tattoo on Zach’s left shoulder, Sky traced her fingers over the outstretched wings.

  “The good healer’s inside throwing glow spheres at a nest of rats. She’s a force of nature. Pronounced the one mattress infested with bugs and dragged it out to the rubbish pile. She’s been cleaning ever since.”

  Alec rested his palm on Zach’s knee, tracing his thumb over the frayed denim of his jeans. “Sky and I didn’t hit it off so well with ‘the good healer’ this morning, but it looks like she’s done right by you.”

  “Can’t complain. Pain’s under control, and she says the flesh should finish knitting in another twenty-four hours.” Zach reached up to brush his hand across his shiny black hair. “She boiled water from the well, gave me a sponge bath, helped me put on a pair of jeans, and plunked me here so she could tear apart the cabin.”

  All three of them startled as a red-winged blackbird scolded them from the trees, and a few moments of silence followed.

  “You’ve been out here a while?” Sky wondered what he thought of them tangling on leaf-covered blankets while he lay wounded in the cabin.

  “Long enough to get an earful. But nix the guilt. I enjoyed the sound effects, and I can’t think of any better way to shake off the edge of what happened earlier.”

  “You and Alec…” Sky wasn’t even sure what she meant to ask. “You…”

  Alec reached across Zach to stroke Sky’s arm through the blanket. “You want the nutshell version?”

  “I guess I want to know how we all fit. How the two of you met, a bit of history.” And where in the blessed world I belong in all this.

  Zach uttered a cryptic grunt, then slid his good arm behind Sky’s back and pulled her against his side, pressing her blanket-clad body close to his bare chest. “How we fit is as close as damn possible. Not sure if Alec told you the Sight’s one of my gifts. Sorry, but even I can’t see how this all comes out in the end, and if Sorren does, he’s not telling. But one bit I keep getting, screaming as loud as a banshee with a megaphone, is that we’ve got to cling together in order to walk out the other side of this mess.”

  Alec opened his mouth to speak, but Zach shook his head.

  “Together, as in, as close as damn possible. Don’t know why, or how, but it’s the only chance we’ve got.”

  Well, that one would take some mulling over. Sky shifted restlessly against Zach’s side, overly warm under the thick blanket but not quite at ease enough to let it drop.

  “Right. While we digest that last bit, I can answer the part about my history with Zach.” Alec chuckled under his breath. “Met for the first time in a schoolyard brawl. I was the new kid, second grade. First of many times Zach got the best of me in a fight.”

  “Before long we figured out we both came accessorized with grandmothers who spoke strange languages and held stranger customs. Never mind we both had a good dose of Irish blood, as far as kids were concerned, Alec was the Greek kid, and I was the Korean kid. In that small town, ‘apple pie on the fourth of July’ life
, about the only chance we had was to get along.”

  Alec leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, chin in hand. “Didn’t figure out we both had Irish roots for a while. Just paired up as a couple of loners looking for company.”

  “Then we hit our teens, and as we came into our power, we caught the faint glow of each other’s auras.” Zach’s lips curled into a smile. “That sheen only another witch can spot.”

  “And all hell broke loose.” Alec laughed out loud this time. “We couldn’t figure out if we wanted to show each other up with bigger, badder spells or just plain jump each other.”

  Zach pulled her close with his good arm when she tried to put some space between them. “Once we got past the pissing match, powerful witches not playing so well with others and all, we gave in to the inevitable ‑‑ power seeking power, hot and raw ‑‑ and swapped virginities.”

  Right. Sorry I asked. Sky tucked her knees up close to her chest under the sweaty blanket. Talk about too much information. No matter what she’d just shared with Alec, all hot and bothered on the forest floor, no one could compete with a history like that. And bless it if it didn’t burn her that she cared.

  “You picking all that up, Zach, my friend?” Alec got up and walked around to the other side of the step, settling beside Sky instead of Zach.

  “Loud and clear. Witch has a psychic broadcast like a warning siren.”

  When both of them snuggled in close, packaging her in the middle of a witch sandwich, she huffed her protest. To deaf ears. And what in fuck was Zach doing, picking up her thoughts so easily, anyway? Bless it, she barely knew the guy.

  “Like I said, witch, we’ve got to pull together. So tight, there’s no room for privacy, or hidden thoughts.” Zach grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled gently. “Or jealousy, or sulking. The hard-ass cop in me definitely isn’t putting up with any sulking.”

  When he dragged her blanket free, dropping it around her waist, she resisted the urge to smack him. Wrong to hit an injured man. Just not fair.

  “Oh!” Although she saw it coming, she hardly had time to do much more than bat ineffectively at each of the men’s heads as they leaned in and covered her breasts with hot kisses. “No, Zach, you’ll mess up your arm!”

  They withdrew with the “No,” but both looked too damn smug. She took a deep breath, winding up to let them know just what kind of behavior she wouldn’t tolerate from a pair of oversexed witches, when Zach’s face went all serious and introspective on her.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  When she reached out to touch Zach’s wrist, Alec caught her hand and shook his head.

  He’s picking up a shadow of what lies ahead ‑‑ a little piece of the future ‑‑ I can tell by the look on his face. Let him see it through.

  Sky shivered as Alec’s warning echoed through her mind, and she watched helplessly as Zach withdrew further into himself. The wind shifted through the trees, and birdsong filled the silence. Indecipherable emotions flickered across Zach’s face, and after what seemed like an eternity, he shifted and shook his head.

  “Okay?” Alec reached across her back to rest his hand on Zach’s shoulder.

  “Wouldn’t be worth much if I let one of my strongest tricks rattle me. Been seeing ahead since I hit twelve. Nothing I can’t deal with.”

  Rolling her eyes at Zach’s bravado, she leaned into him and rested her head against his shoulder, sensing his need for comfort. “Want to tell us?”

  “Wouldn’t do much good if I left it unsaid. What I said a few minutes ago ‑‑ about pulling together ‑‑ that’s what triggered the foreknowledge. That part I’ve known all along, although without a hell of a lot of information to back it up.”

  Frightened of what might come next, Sky leaned harder against Zach’s shoulder, seeking comfort herself now. Alec shifted closer, as if by physical proximity, they could weather whatever prediction Zach planned to share.

  “A lot of this won’t make any sense, but what I saw ‑‑ we need to share pieces of ourselves. Not sure if that means someone’s been keeping a secret that can save us, or what. But somehow, the missing pieces will strengthen us, and without them, we’re lost.” Zach reached up to touch Sky’s cheek. “You, specifically, are at risk if we don’t follow through with this ‑‑ sharing.”

  “Fucking seer, always has to speak in riddles.” The humor in Alec’s tone did little to lighten the tension.

  “Down to specifics. I saw a bowl of water and a ring of candles, with Sky staring into the water.”

  Scrying rite. But until she understood what they had to gain ‑‑ or lose ‑‑ with that particular piece of gray magic, she’d keep the information to herself.

  “Then some out-of-this-world sexual capers.” Zach paused. “Ah, I mean between the three of us. Wilder than anything we’ve done to date.”

  Sky frowned. Oh, goody. Perverted presentiments.

  “And crackling through the sex came a rush of power so fucking strong, it stole the wind from my lungs. Not sure what, but we gained…something. Somehow, all said and done, when we came out the other end of it all, we’d sealed the connection we need to survive. Meshed so tight, it was as if…”

  As Zach’s voice trailed off, Sky felt goose bumps form along her arms. Foreknowledge gave her the creeps on the best of occasions, and any presentiment involving both edgy sex and life-or-death predictions ‑‑ well, she’d just as soon Zach had kept this to himself.

  With a sigh, Alec leaned forward and picked up a stone, tossing it at the nearest tree trunk. As she waited for him to say his piece, a volley of curses issued forth from the cabin, followed by a sharp squeak. No doubt the pain-in-the-ass healer chasing off another rat.

  “I think I can fill in some of the gaps. Matt talked a lot during those six weeks last year before Sorren packed me off to Sweden. Fucking silver lining, you know? I tried for years to establish some kind of connection with a son I hardly knew. But he…” Alec shook his head, his hair brushing his shoulders. “Then, after what happened with Jaimis, for the first time in my life, Matt wanted to spend time with me ‑‑ couldn’t talk fast enough to fill me in on the details of his life ‑‑ anything to take my mind off the pain.”

  A long stretch of silence followed, and Sky wrapped her shields tight around her to grant Alec the privacy of his thoughts.

  “Here’s the part that’s relevant to us. Matt said he, his friend Kenji, and Lena accomplished some sort of power sharing.”

  Uneasy at the mention of her former roommate, Sky drew the blanket back up over her shoulders and fidgeted with the soft cloth. She’d pretty much destroyed Lena’s life last year when she ran to the press and babbled on about witches working magic to heal the environment, and then went so far as to hand over a list of names.

  Hell of a thing to do ‑‑ and the beginning of this whole rotten mess. But she’d believed Jaimis when he insisted crediting witches for ending the drought would lead to legal protections and the freedom to wield magic openly. Only time in her life she’d been so fucking naïve. But back then, she’d trusted him.

  “Hey, you with us?” Zach shifted the blanket aside to rest his hand on her bare knee. “You look a bit shaky.”

  “Just lost in the past for a moment.” She turned to Alec. “So, they swapped powers somehow. What’s that have to do with Zach’s vision?”

  “The somehow, for starters. Swap took place in a rather dramatic ménage, according to Matt. Though he didn’t sketch out any details, of course. Basic elements seemed to be that he, Lena, and their friend Kenji were cooped up together after having taken part in a forbidden rite. They were on the run, edgy as hell, and fighting through some jealousy. During a tense moment, they combined their light spheres, mingling magics, and the ménage followed. Next day, they discovered they’d picked up some of each other’s strongest skills. Never heard of anything like it.”

  “That’s it, then.” Zach bolted to his feet, dragging Sky’s blanket half off her lap. “Has to be.
Trading magic would sure as hell make us stronger, and in keeping with my foreknowledge, Sky would have the most to gain, seeing as her power’s unbalanced. And for all of us, any increase in power would give us an edge against the rogue witch.”

  “You’re leaving out that the two of you would have the most to lose, assuming we were crazy enough to attempt something like this ‑‑ if it’s even possible to duplicate the event. What if I got nothing in the attempted swap, and my off-kilter magic damaged your power in the bargain?”

  “Thing about my gift is, once I see something, it’s more like than not to follow through that way.” Zach’s eyes were way too serious. “We may be left with a bit of ambiguity, a little wiggle room, but more or less, we’ve got our marching orders.”

  “Look, I’m having trouble processing all this right now. I need a good soak in the pond. After that, why don’t we take over the cabin, chase Laura off with the rest of the guards where she belongs, and sort this out together?” Not waiting for a response, Sky abandoned the blanket and headed for the pond.

  Chapter Seven

  “Hey, what’d you do to get rid of Laura?” Sky padded barefoot and naked through the main room of the cabin to the bedroom area and pulled her bra and panties, jeans, and a fresh tank top over her pond-wet skin. Her hair hung to her waist, dripping down her back toward her butt, but it felt so good to be cool and clean she didn’t give a damn.

  “Told her we were going to try our hand at some dark arts and offered her the chance to participate.” Alec made his way into the bedroom and pulled Sky close for a kiss. “She beat a quick path out to join the rest of the guards, after checking Zach’s arm and pronouncing him as fit as he should be this soon after an injury that serious. Seems our healer’s a straight shooter. No gray areas for her, when it comes to magic.”

  “Works for me. Can’t stand her watching me out of the corner of her eye.” Sky ran her fingers through her hair and then rummaged in her pack for a comb.

  To her surprise, Alec grabbed the comb and started untangling her hair from the bottom up, teasing out the snarls. The proximity to his bare chest sent little zings of pleasure sliding through her senses and directly to her pussy. At least he’d pulled on a pair of shorts. Tight running shorts that didn’t hide much, but nonetheless…