A Witch's Beauty (Daughters of Arianne 2)

Mina emitted a surprised squawk as he tumbled her into his lap, gathered her in close and bent his head over hers, putting his lips in distracting proximity to her face. It almost made her forget he'd scattered her chips and the remains of her sandwich across the boards of the general store's shaded porch. "I want to protect you from everything," he said. "I can't separate the woman from the girl from the child from the witch. You're just going to have to deal with that."

She could feel it, in the hard tremor that ran through him. Whether he was in fact motivated by a mortal life where he hadn't been able to help someone he'd truly loved, such that she'd become a surrogate despite his denial, she still knew it was truth. He'd made it clear that he wasn't starry-eyed when it came to her potential for evil. While proving that he would kill her if he had to do it wouldn't be viewed by most females as a way to increase trust in a relationship, it had done it for her.

He seemed intent on demonstrating that he'd stand by her, through petty irritation and tedious guard duty, as well as the possibility of death, dismemberment and torment of kinds that couldn't be imagined.

"I'd offer you a chip, if you could taste it," she said. His quick smile warmed her.

"True generosity. Thank you." He angled his head to give her a considering look. "But I like the taste of you better than anything. Would you consider a kiss instead?"

It was the first time he'd ever asked, instead of taken, which made it harder for her. Regardless, she arched a brow at him, trying to appear as if she were casually considering it, even as his words reminded her vividly of what his mouth could do. Not just to her mouth, but to other parts of her body.

Reaching up so abruptly she almost hit his face with her knuckles, she recovered enough to slow herself down, feather her hand through his hair, drifting forward along the line of his face. He stayed still, letting her have the chance to take something for her own pleasure.

"I like the taste of you, too," she said. "So much, sometimes I don't know if I can stop myself from tearing into your skin. You frighten me, David, because you make control hard, and that's already very difficult for me."

"Maybe you should just trust me," he suggested. "You won't hurt me more than I can bear. And when I draw your passion to the bloodlust level, I'll hold you down, focus all that energy here."

She gasped as the hand she hadn't been watching found its way up her skirt, laid itself between her thighs, fingered her intimately so her legs loosened to him. "I'll make that passion rise," he continued, his voice thickening, "so violence becomes something else. We have angels in Heaven who write poetry, put it to song. They sing of how Creation is unstable, as unstable as destruction, though far more beautiful." He hummed what she imagined were those words, before he nuzzled her forehead. She closed her eyes, her fingers in his hair as he did remarkable things between her thighs.

His voice was a seduction like the wind, sifting through the sand on the street, carrying it along effortlessly. "If you channel your tremendous power into something else, it helps, right? The skeletons of horses, the phantoms of people long dead by violent or tragic means."

She mewled as his hand rocked against her, making her hips rise to his touch as his arm tightened around her back. "Create for me. Create magic while I get you wet and gasping. Let me see what your mind will do."

Her nails dug in, and his expression got more fierce and intent. "Use your claws if you must, kitten, but do magic. Make magic for me."

He'd doused the saloon fire, sent the smoke billowing away from them, so there were just the charred bones of the building now. The sun was almost gone, a moment or two away from plunging them into night, the air already hinting of the coolness coming. She was far more susceptible to cold, fairly unaffected by the heat of the desert. She'd been fighting Dark One fire for a long time, after all.

David picked up a chip, brought it to her lips just as he slid two more fingers deep into her. She chewed, swallowed, her glazed eyes on him, lips moist.

He leaned forward, licked salt off her lips. "Create for me, little witch."

Watching her get aroused was all-absorbing to him, but David made himself pay attention, so he noticed the first leap of fire. From the charred remains of the saloon, she'd found a lingering spark, and created an arch of flame that sprang from the embers, twisted like a confused snake on the sand, then steadied. As it turned toward them, it spread, then became the wide bloom of a fiery rose. Small spouts of flame bounced out of the crevices of the petals, scattered across the dusty main street and created smaller buds, each one different.

Other tongues of flame split off to become shiny and thin, gold red waving blades of grass, a meadow for the flowers that now dotted the debris, turning the saloon remains into a landscape.

Still, the fire spread, the street becoming a garden of flame blossoms, the heat of them preceding their approach. As David worked her clit, he felt it swell with blood, a rose of flesh instead of flame. Even with her legs open to him, her body straining, her eyes stayed locked with his, apparently her focal point for the magic she was spinning. Her nails had gouged into him at some point, and he could feel the stickiness of his own blood, knew it was on her fingers.

Goddess, he'd just had her, right before their fight. He couldn't get enough of her.

"Put one of the flowers in your hand." Uncurling her tense fingers from her side, he opened the palm. Her gaze flickered, and one of the blooms rose from the ground as if plucked, coming through the air in a graceful float, landing in her hand. Because it was her magic, he knew it wouldn't burn her flesh.

Letting go, he drew one of his daggers. He ran the tip lightly down the center of her palm, through the flame petals, creating a swirl of magic, a shower of sparks that fell upon them both but didn't disrupt the form of the enchantment. Her control was too refined for that. He wanted to disrupt it. His body tightened when she reacted to the erotic kiss of the pain with a parting of her lips.

Re-sheathing the weapon and taking her flame-engulfed, bleeding hand, he pressed it to his chest, just over his heart.

Mina gasped as his face contorted with what she knew had to be searing pain, shooting through his nerve endings, screaming their rejection of that Dark fire. But his grip became bruising, holding her there. His other hand amazingly kept moving, driving up her arousal. Helpless, she pumped herself against his fingers with the rhythm her body dictated, her gaze on that hand and his burning flesh.

"That's it," he rasped. "Work yourself against me. Come. Come now."

The harshly delivered command sent her over, pushing furiously against his friction. Feeling his flesh burning beneath her magic, and yet experiencing his command of her, his control of her release, was a moment of such perfect balance the only thing Mina wished for more was having him inside of her.

But this was what she would have. She cried out, the climax overtaking her, as his expression became triumphant. Now she was held in the cup of one of his wings as he pinned her there with a hand at the base of her throat, the other hand working her even more powerfully, increasing her sense of helplessness and the intensity of the energy at once. She completed the triad of connection, keeping her flame-engulfed hand flat against his chest.

When at last she stopped, chest heaving with deep, shuddering breaths, the fire flickered and slowly died away. Mina felt his fierce gaze on her as she slowly lifted her palm. He'd known about fire magic and his own anatomy, knowing what could scar an angel permanently if it wasn't treated. He'd let her mark him.

She didn't see the rose brand she'd expected, but a shadowy image of her handprint. Of course. This kind of magic took the form it felt was most appropriate. Not letting herself think about why she was doing it, she leaned forward, holding on to his hair and the side of his neck, and pressed her lips there.

"You can heal it," she said after a long, long moment while she felt him quiver with pain and something else. Something that made it hard for her to speak or even breathe.

"Yes. But I won

't." When her gaze lifted to him, his eyes were so full of that indefinable thing, Mina swallowed. She shifted so she was straddling him, a scrambling, almost violent movement like an attack, his hands having time only to come around to cup her bottom as she reached beneath his kilt and found him. Shoving the fabric away, she forced herself down on his rock-hard length. Spreading the skirt over his legs, as if by concealing the joining point it made them one animal, inseparable, she let out a breathy moan. Her ultra sensitive, post climax tissues contracted on him. When he seized her hips and drove her to the hilt, she cried out, but then went still as he held her there, his gaze fixed on hers, their two bodies quivering, vibrating together.

She couldn't think of what to say to him. Things had gotten so complex so quickly between them. Was she selfish-and foolish-enough to think she could claim an angel just because she was starting to think she wanted his company?

Then he started to move, and she let all that get swept away by the dark thrill of how he surged into her, his eyes still fired, mouth held firm. She plunged her hands into his wings, gripping handfuls of soft feathers. His arms cinched around her, so she was pressed against his body, that brand. As he began to come, her muscles contracted further, squeezing him inside where her feelings couldn't be seen. She closed her eyes.

"Thank you," she whispered.

For being willing to follow me into Hell. She knew she didn't have a pure enough soul to resist the temptation to let him do just that, if that was where she was headed. For the first time in her life, she wished she had more to offer.

But then, in an unexpected shift caused by the realization that the thing he'd called a cake donut was mashed beneath her knee, she thought maybe there was one thing she could give him, something he couldn't provide himself.

If she didn't get him killed before the opportunity presented itself.

Eighteen

DAVID told her they weren't far from the Schism. Since she found herself dreading the confrontation, not knowing whether or not it would permit her access to the safe house Jonah had offered, Mina opted to walk the last few miles, despite the nagging ache she knew it would cause in her hips.

She could feel the vibration of the fault line already, tendrils of its energy reaching out. Anna had told her about the remarkable mirages she and Jonah had seen on the shimmering horizon when they'd gotten this close, so she distracted herself by looking for them.