My Forbidden Desire (11 page)

Still Alexandrine had no words. None at all. No wonder he hated her. No wonder.

“When one of the free kin finds a talisman, we take it back if we can. And we crack it open. They have no body, so we give whoever it was our bodies.” His tongue came out and touched his lower lip. “It’s never easy to assimilate with what’s left. It’s impossible to know its condition until it’s too late. But if we live through it, we honor the one whose body died. Their magic lives in us. With us.”

“You’ve done that?”

He laid his knife across his lap, and his gaze unfocused again. The pit of her stomach turned cold. He stroked the knife from hilt to tip. “No.”

“But you intend to.” With her amulet. She realized she was stroking the carving through her shirt.

“Yes.”

How did she even begin to address this? “I… I didn’t know. I didn’t know what this was.”

“I know,” he said.

She felt about an inch high. “Even if I wanted to, Xia, I couldn’t trap someone’s magic in a can of tuna fish.”

His head swiveled until they were looking at each other again. “You’re still a witch.”

“My magic doesn’t work.”

He gave her a dismissive look. “The talisman is changing that.”

“No, it’s not.”

“That thing’s working on your magic. I can feel it. Sooner or later, you’ll be pulling just like Daddy.”

“No,” she said. Her heart shriveled to dust. “I refuse to accept that. For me, it’s just a bit of carved rock. That’s all. It doesn’t do anything.” That was a lie, though, wasn’t it? The talisman had done something to her. Or did she have a nonmagical explanation for her inability to take off the amulet? She pulled the amulet from under her shirt. The stone leopard stared at her with lifeless eyes. “Rock,” she said, more to herself than to Xia. “Nothing but a carved rock. Maybe there used to be something in there, but there’s not anymore.” She was rationalizing, and that made her feel dirty. Actions had consequences, sometimes, oftentimes, unintended ones, and consequences ought to be faced. “Whatever it was, it’s gone.”

She knew as well as he did that she didn’t believe that. Not really. He leaned toward her. “Take it off.”

“Bet you say that to all the girls.”

“Come on, Alexandrine Marit.” He gave her a look. She knew better than to think he meant anything sexual by it, but she still had a sexual reaction. “If it’s just some carved rock, take it off for me, baby.”

Denial rose up, swift and hot and burning. The damn thing wasn’t magical, if it ever had been. And yet she couldn’t make her hands move to the cord that held the talisman. Right now, this minute, she believed to her core that taking it off meant she’d die. And that was just plain crazy, because she hadn’t thought that thirty seconds ago. Alexandrine slid off her chair but grabbed its top rail when her legs wobbled. “Why is that?” she whispered. She hadn’t felt any of this happening to her. “Why can’t I take it off?”

“Because you’re a witch,” he said. “The talisman has been leaking into you for months. Changing you so slowly you never noticed what was happening.”

“No.” With anger and terror mixing into sheer nerve, she yanked on the thong. The leather bit into the nape of her neck, cutting her. The pain was a relief that cut into her panic. The leather broke with a faint snap and a scrape along her skin. She heaved it at Xia with everything she had in her.

She watched the talisman arc through the air. And she saw Xia catch the leather thong. The amulet spun from the end, dark then light, dark then light. The breath in her lungs froze. Her skin prickled. Fire flashed in her head, and the heat grew until she was convinced she was going to go up in flames. Every inch of her body burned. A shudder ripped through her, and on its heels came more searing heat. Just like that, the amulet was back in her hand.

From the bed, Xia said, “Don’t ever tell me again you’re not a fucking witch.”

“I didn’t do that.” But there the amulet was, on her palm, with the two ends of the broken thong dangling toward the floor.

“Put it back on,” he said.

“I don’t want it.” Her voice trembled. “I don’t want it near me. It’s horrible.” She fought back a sob, but it didn’t work. God, what a pathetic noise that was. “I can’t live like that. Knowing the truth about what it is. I won’t.”

Xia slid to the edge of the mattress and extended a hand to her. “Come here.”

“What for?”

He made a face. “Just do it, all right?”

She put her hand in his, and he pulled her onto the bed. Alexandrine knelt on the mattress, talisman in her hand while he grabbed the broken ends of the thong and tied them together. He put the thong around her neck.

“I don’t want it.” But she was still gripping the carving like her life depended on her holding it.

“It’s going to take some doing to get that off you without damaging you.” His palm lingered on her nape. “I can’t do it here. Not now. That kind of magic takes preparation. You understand me?”

“But you’ll get it off me, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I will.” He pried her fingers open. “I’m just going to look at it, all right?”

“Okay.” She felt like her mind was being split in two. Half of her wanted to stop him from even looking at the amulet, and the other half, apparently the weaker half, wanted him to take it off her, because she knew she didn’t have the strength to do it by herself. Not again.

She ended up putting her hands on his shoulders for balance. He went still. Statue still. Then, after a bit, he tilted back, taking her with him so that the amulet swung away from her body. He slid two fingers behind the carved stone.

The very minute his hands touched the amulet, she fell into his mind. God, it was crazy insane. Things like that didn’t happen. Couldn’t happen. People didn’t leave their bodies and go visit someone else’s head. But the world dropped away. She was touching Xia’s mind, and what she found there brought a scream to her throat.

Chapter 9

A
lexandrine fell and fell without hitting bottom, and when the whirling sensation stopped at last, Xia’s mind surrounded her. He wasn’t doing anything about it, not yet. In the first instant of their touching, she knew him immediately and intimately. His hatred of her went bone-deep. He hated her for what she was. For being a witch. For being Rasmus Kessler’s daughter. But he wanted her, too, and that was scary, feeling all that hatred and desire coming at her. At the center of what he was, there was a cold, deep universe that pulsed in time with the beat of her heart. Magic. His magic. Narcotic magic.

As her dizziness receded, she got flashes of his physical experiences. He gripped her amulet so tight the edges cut into his palm. The sharp bite of the stone hurt her, too. His other hand was in contact with her. Or maybe that was her touching him.

Disoriented by her inability to separate his sensory information from hers, she swayed. The motion helped her separate herself from him. She tried to right herself but couldn’t, because she didn’t know which way was up or down, left or right. Fear vibrated through her with a low bass tone so subtle she almost didn’t recognize what it was. It was Xia’s power flowing through her.

This can’t be happening.

She flattened her hands over her ears. “Get out of my head.”

“Alexandrine.”

He was so achingly beautiful. His voice was so beautiful; she wanted to listen to him forever. Especially if he said her name like that, slow and soft. Her head cleared a little. Not much. And when it did, her stomach rolled up. She pried open her eyes and found herself looking into Xia’s neon blue gaze.

“Alexandrine,” he said again.

Her dizziness faded enough for her to realize she was still kneeling, still gripping his shoulders, and that he was on his knees, too. He had an arm around her waist. Underneath her shirt. An accident, that. He only meant to keep her from falling backward off the bed. Nevertheless, his fingers splayed over her bare back. He clutched the amulet in his other hand, and she could still feel the pain in his hand.

“Breathe,” he said.

Oh, God, she had no idea if he’d spoken out loud or directly into her mind. She inhaled. The world settled, but nothing was the same. Icy air rasped in her lungs. Her eye sockets hurt. Xia’s irises were big, wide pools of electric blue.

“Better?” he asked.

“So,” she said, pushing him away, well aware that he moved because he wanted to, not because she was strong enough to budge him. He let go of the amulet, and with a jolt, the connection ended. “Was it good for you, too?”

“Fuck off, witch.” They were both unnerved, then. “That wasn’t my fault.”

“Well it sure as hell wasn’t mine.” She’d read about the dangers fiends allegedly posed to humans. Right about now, she was thinking maybe the warnings weren’t far off the mark.

“I don’t go in without permission,” Xia said. “I swear, I don’t know what just happened.” He pushed her shoulder. “You wanna whine about what happened, go do it to your magekind friends about how fiends need to be taken down and killed or made into slaves. Maybe you can team up with all your lame-ass mage buddies and see if you can pull enough magic to get a mageheld of your own.” He reached out and poked the amulet, pressing it hard into her belly. “You could kill this and live a little longer.”

She got all mixed up again, when without warning she was staring into her own brown eyes. Honey-brown, she thought. Her eyes. Cheeks. Nose, chin, mouth. None of what she saw registered with her. It was like looking into a mirror and not recognizing her own face. Pure lust lanced through her. Sharp and needy. “What is this?” she whispered. She was having trouble breathing again. “What’s happening?”

“Hell if I know.” He took back his hand, but in the instant before the stone fell, cool and sweet against her body, she knew he was lying. The connection between them wasn’t gone, just minimized. But it was there, a high tension wire just waiting for the circuit to complete.

“It’s the talisman.” She took his hand—amazed that he let her touch him after everything he’d told her about what her father had done—and opened his fingers, expecting to see blood. There wasn’t any, and she was mysteriously and vaguely disappointed by that. Her room seemed very small now. Intimate. Her thoughts and feelings were all mixed up with a desire so intense she hurt, and that, too, was mixed up with anger, puzzlement, fear, arousal, and curiosity. To her bones, she knew some of these reactions were not hers. She couldn’t tell which ones belonged to him and wasn’t sure it would matter if she did know. She brought his outstretched palm nearer. Xia took a breath.

“Well look at that,” she whispered. “Now you have one, too.”

On his palm was the gray impression of a panther. Just like the one on her stomach, except the obverse side. She traced the outline of the creature, then followed a line down his wrist to the crook of his elbow. She pressed the tip of her finger to the purple bump of a vein. “Which one of us,” she softly asked, “wants the taste of blood? I can’t tell.”

A corner of his mouth twitched. He pulled his hand free of hers, though his other remained splayed on her back. If she knew he wanted her, then he must know how she felt about that. He touched a fingertip to the back of her neck where the leather thong had cut her skin. The salty sting of his finger touching the spot made her suck in air.

“Baby,” he whispered. “You hurt yourself.” His voice was low and sweet and full of desire. “How bad is it?” he asked.

“Not very.”

“I can make it better.” He stayed close to her, and in her belly she felt an echo of his desire to touch her. And to taste her, too. That would do something to him, she thought. For him. Tasting her blood.

She wasn’t herself; she knew that. Though she no longer felt like she was in his head, the connectedness hadn’t faded. She lifted her gaze from his hand and, whoa, head rush. She got caught in his eyes all over again, and she was dizzy and losing her sense of physical and mental boundaries. How the hell was she supposed to know where his thoughts ended and hers began? His body was the same as hers. Her body was the same as his. She knew him intimately, so how was she supposed to keep the barriers up when she couldn’t find them? Or, and this was a poser, how was she supposed to know when she was getting his thoughts and desires? Or both. Or maybe she was hallucinating all of it.

He pulled her nearer, and her palms ended up against his chest, against warm skin and unforgiving muscle, and she turned her head to the side. He brushed her hair off her neck. Arousal zinged through her. His knife was in his other hand, but she took it from him and set it arm’s length away on the mattress.

“I shouldn’t want you like this,” Xia said. “I don’t want to. You’re Rasmus’s daughter.” He touched a fingertip to her nape again and bent his head, inhaling softly. “But I do. I want you so bad I hurt.”

Alexandrine thought she’d melt right now, right into a puddle for him to do with as he would, except for when she was doing as she would. He slid a fingertip along the abrasion left by the leather thong. Then his arms tightened around her, and softly he growled. The sound came from deep in his chest, un-human. His lips brushed her nape and then opened, pressing down on the back of her neck. His tongue slipped along the cut, tasting, touching, and then became a kiss, moving around to her throat.