Eternal Embrace (32 page)

“It could, but I think she’s already allowed us our honeymoon, mmm?”

Joey caressed her hand through his silky hair. “Not nearly enough. I want years.”

“Of a honeymoon?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said quickly. “With just you and me, but I suppose…you’d better answer, knowing Hunter, she knows we are here.”

“Ha, the witch does
not
know where we are. She might try, but I’m not stupid. No one, not even Hunter can trace where this phone is.” He flipped it open with a wink. “Hunter, what’s the urgency?”

“No urgency for once, just good news. Sorta.”

Jaxon lifted a brow, sharing his doubts on that silently. “Come then, but count on pissing me off if you track your coming here. Keep it low and don’t try to backtrack. Use the—”

“Dude, like I’m a spy or something. Besides, Agni’s been to your pad and he’s here, awake again and ready to come over.”

They both heard Agni’s grumble, but Hunter went on to say, “Yeah, we can be there in ten, okay?”

Joey shot upright, but Jaxon grinned. “Dudette, if you can get here that quick, you’d better be waiting at the front stoop, because you’re not old enough for the porn show inside.” He clipped the phone off with a wink at her.

“Jaxon!” She punched him lightly on his shoulder. “Porn show?”

He laughed and tried to kiss her.

“I can’t believe you said that!”

“No one doubts we’ve been busy, Joey,” he said, grinning as if he’d just won the lotto.

“Well, we don’t have to announce how we’ve been busy to everyone,” she said, and added, “unless you don’t
want
to be busy any longer.”

He rubbed her head, ruffling her hair, and bent to kiss her. “I’ll remember next time not to tease about all the fun we have, okay?”

“Mmmph. What we do is for us, alone.”

Laughing, he held his hands up in surrender. “Shit, sugar, I am all yours. Can I help it if you’ve made me the happiest damn vampire on the planet? I’ll remember next time though.”

She tried not to smile at his teasing, but ended up pulling him down and kissing him thoroughly.

“Ah, damn, you are a mean, mean woman. Now, clothe yourself, they’ll be here shortly.”

She grinned at his bossy tone and flicked him on the nose with her finger. He nipped at her, but shifted her to their bedroom and kissed her until she didn’t want to dress in anything but him.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Agni lounged back on the same couch he’d called his own the last time he’d been here, but instead of Markee keeping him balanced, he had a witch perched next to him on the arm. Hunter’s hair was blue now, with dark chunks of black mixed with the white blonde. She laughed and threw Joey a small package tied with a silver and blue ribbon.

“This is from Aubrey. A wedding gift, she said. I told her all about the difference, but she didn’t think you’d see one.” She nodded to Joey and her grin flashed a dimple. “I don’t either, but”—she shrugged—“I don’t plan on marrying or bonding, so…”

“You’re young still, give yourself a few hundred years or eons,” Agni grumbled, sipping his Scotch on the rocks. “Maybe you’ll think differently then.”

“Yeah, probably,” Hunter said with a ‘duh’ look at Agni. “Anyway, so, want the scoop first or boring stuff?”

“Oh…scoop?” Joey said, her hazel eyes glowing with amusement. She opened the little velvet pouch, and stiffened next to him. “Oh, Jaxon,” she murmured, and his body automatically went hard as a rock at the sound.

He anchored his ankle on his opposite knee and adjusted his jeans to bring back the circulation to his dick. In her hand, she’d spilled two perfectly formed rings with intricate whirls etched onto the outside to form their names. Inside was one word, ‘always’, in a flowing script.

“How did she…how do you think she knew?” Joey asked him.

“I don’t know, but they’re beautiful,” he said. He reached down and picked up the smaller one, examining it from all sides. “This one is amazing, look at the detail,” he told her, turning the ring this way and that. She did the same to the larger one, smiling with delight, he noticed. He had to get her more jewellery. He had many pieces he wanted to give her over the rest of their lives, but these were truly elegant.

Agni sat forward and frowned over at them. “She’s a powerful witch, but…” He sat back and shrugged.

“But what?” Hunter demanded. “You don’t like her. Why is that?”

“I don’t know her, there’s a difference.” Agni examined his drink too casually. “Witches from her time period, they had powers that are forbidden now.”

Jaxon nodded. “She’s not one of those, Agni. Didn’t you see the swirls of blue?”

“Many of them wore those, Jaxon.”

“But they were also shadowed in black. Hers weren’t. Besides, she smells right.” He shrugged at the still-doubtful look on Agni’s face, but explained to Joey and Hunter, “Agni thinks she’s a demon binder—a witch, or any magic folk for that matter, who once used spells to draw demons to their will, using the demon’s power to make themselves stronger.”

“Like the witch in Scotland? You think Aubrey is one of those sick freaks?” Hunter demanded, looking offended.

“Scotland?” Jaxon asked, slipping the small ring on Joey’s finger. “Fits,” he said rubbing his fingers over her tiny knuckles.

She slipped his on his finger and grinned. “Oh, Jaxon, it looks wonderful.”

“Darlin’, you need to save that for the bedroom.”

“Or kitchen, or living room…”

“Or alone time.”

“Yo, love birds, come on, now.” Hunter laughed. “What gives, are they always like this?”

“Yes, we are always like this, I don’t know about everyone else…” Joey said with a grin. She perched on his lap, happy as could be and not the least shy to show her affection in front of the others. He was happy as he could be with her exactly where she was. If anyone had ever told him such a thing would happen, let alone be welcome and damn near needed, he’d have laughed until he split a gut. He pulled her closer and stared at Agni. Something more was bothering his old buddy than his mistrust of an ancient witch.

“Most are, I guess. Now, what about Scotland and this witch?” Jaxon asked.

Agni swallowed his Scotch, not answering, so Hunter shrugged and flipped her hair off her forehead. “Sorcha—you knew she was missing, right? No? How is that possible? Seriously, you all have been alone way too long,” she laughed. “Well, she was missing and whaddya know? Now she and…wait for it, wait for it…Alex are mated.”

“What the shit? You’re joking. That stiff-necked wolf is Sorcha’s bonded?” Jaxon stared at Hunter, then Agni, until the demon gave him a curt nod. “What the fuck.”

“Who is Sorcha?” Joey asked.

Jaxon couldn’t resist the urge to kiss her so he didn’t even try. “Well, she’s head of the Jade Coven, the one—”

“Nope, that’s the next dish.” Hunter took Agni’s glass and walked over to fill it, grabbed a Coke and brought them their bottle of wine. “Ready?”

He nodded, and Joey grinned. “You’re enjoying this,” she accused him in a whisper, with a subtle elbow to his side.

“Shit, yeah, no one ever gives me the dish.”

Agni snorted but took his drink. “That’s because you’re a damn recluse.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get jealous of the pad, man,” he said. “So what’s the next dish?”

“Well, Sorcha’s handed the reins back to the rightful head of our exalted coven,” Hunter said with mock severity.

Agni snorted again. The dude looked like hell, not at all like his normal smartass self. “And who’s that?” Jaxon asked, only half-focused on Hunter.

“Trouble.”

“There is?” Joey asked. “Where?”

“Wait, are you saying—” Jax stopped Joey from rising with a hand on her thigh and cut off his thoughts in mid-sentence to stare at Hunter’s happy-as-shit smile to Agni’s miserable face. “What gives? Did you think—I mean, were you thinking that Sorcha was yours?”

Agni speared him with a pissed-off glare. “Of course the fuck not. What makes you say crazy shit like that?”

Joey sighed heavily and patted his thigh.
“I got this one.”
“Well, you look like…well, Agni, there’s no way to say this without sounding bad, so, yeah, you look like shit,” Joey told him. “What’s wrong then?”

“Nothing’s wrong. Everything hunky-dory. Trouble is the new head of the Jade coven. Viktor is off after some human that bombed the cell in Russia. Oh, yeah, Aubrey found a way to remove the collars on the Lykae, but Vik had already ditched the plan to stay together and headed off like the Lone Ranger. Big surprise there. The Jade is moving to Scotland, everyone is fighting the Death Stalkers and all we have to do is somehow hunt down Gerald, free your buddy Evan and it’s a happy fucking holiday for everyone.”

Jaxon examined his wine, and soothed Joey through their link. “
Something happened to Agni, but I’m not sure what.”

“Mm, maybe you should ask him—like alone.”

“Yeah, that might be best.”

“He looks so miserable.”

“Well, it sounds to me like no one’s missed us, then,” Jax said aloud, and silently sent Joey a warm flood of his love. She scooted closer, admiring their rings and settling in with the others like discussing immortal shit didn’t freak her out. It did, a little, but not enough to frighten her. She trusted him and his judgement—the weight of that responsibility she shouldered with him though, and he loved her even more because of it. “So, why the house call?”

Hunter sipped her Coke and shrugged. “Just to say hi, you know, like friends do from time to time.”

Joey nodded. “I’m glad. If you move to Scotland too, does that mean we’ll be neighbours?”

“Nah, I’m not moving. I might visit, but I won’t go to Scotland with the coven. Aubrey is already there, by the way, but your horses are good, and she has the kitten. The thing wouldn’t let her go, I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. She was my granddad’s, but I’m sure she’ll love Scotland. Is Aubrey like moving back where she’s from?”

“Yeah, kinda, but farther north. Not much left of what she remembers, so, yeah, she’s not happy with the new and improved Scotland. Hates it, you might say, but she was from way back, before there was a Scotland. When there was like families all bunched together.”

“Clans, you mean?” Joey asked.

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Hunter shrugged. “She’s deadly on technology.”

“I thought that was your thing,” Jaxon asked, intrigued in spite of himself. He wanted to know what bugged Agni, but more, he wanted the two of them gone so he could continue to keep Joey in his arms.

“I am in your arms.”

“Naked, sneak. Naked.”

“Oh, I like naked. Can we try some of that vanilla oil body rub stuff?”

“Woman—”
Jax broke off his mind speech and shot to his feet just as his alarms rang through the house.

“Yeah, well, she breaks—what the fuck is that?” Hunter asked, also rising to her feet.

“That’s Jax’s alarms. Someone is here,” Joey whispered.

“That’s my signal someone has broken past the spells, Joey. Get to the –“

“Jaxon!”

At Joey’s yell, Jaxon spun in time to see a flash of black then Gerald stood in the entryway. At his feet, he had Evan on a collar. Jaxon lifted his arm to push Joey behind him and Evan leapt over the couch and landed on him, knocking them both over the coffee table and into the mantel. Joey immediately shifted and he sensed her on his left side now, still close, but out of the danger Evan posed. Jaxon grappled with Evan’s arms, trying to keep him far enough away from him that he could break the man’s hold without hurting him. Not that Evan seemed to notice. He fought like an animal, not a man.

With a low menacing growl, Evan latched onto his shoulder. Fangs pierced Jaxon’s muscle and he punched Evan in the head, repeatedly hitting him as hard as he could to get him off. Not that the bastard seemed to notice.

“Jaxon!”

“The knife. Get the knife, Joey!”

“I’m on it. Jaxon! Get him off you! Don’t you dare die trying to save Evan. He’s lost to us now. Don’t you dare—”

“I’m trying to get him off. Get the knife. Now!”

He sensed Joey leave. Instantly, the vibrations of power that surged through the room from Gerald hit near him. He ducked and searched the room for Hunter, spotting her down by the couch. He couldn’t get a read off her, and that worry layered on top of the millions of others crowding him.

Evan hit him hard in the kidney, drawing his attention back to the fight. Evan followed the first with another in the same spot, making Jax growl out a curse. With a massive thrust of his feet into Evan’s stomach, he managed to dislodge the guy enough to shift out from under him. He landed a foot away, turned with the fireplace poker and bashed Evan in the head. The hit was true, but Evan shook his head and licked the flow of blood off his lips.

“Fuck, Jaxon, get the hell out of the way!” Agni shouted.

Jaxon shifted to the couch, turning in time to see Agni tackle Gerald around the middle and toss him down. Gerald got back up before Agni could get a hold on him, and stunned them all with a blow to Agni that sent the demon back against the mantel. Agni snarled and attacked again, his eyes blackening in rage and his features turning sharper.

Evan drew his attention off the quick fight long enough for Jaxon to shove Evan over a chair. Jaxon turned back to see Gerald still taking everything Agni dished out, a sick laugh coming from him.

“Don’t hit him directly. Use something else! Gain us some time!” Jaxon grabbed a lamp and slammed it down on Evan’s head when he drew close again, dropkicking him in the head right after, and watched the big bastard sink to the ground. As soon as he did, Jaxon spun to see Joey materialise right next to him, the satchel gone but the knife out and wrapped in the protective covering. They had their time and a chance, now. He took it from her and turned to close in on Gerald.

Gerald hissed like a cat, but Agni suddenly had his own knife and stabbed Gerald in the chest, holding the blade in place after to keep the guy grounded to the room, Jaxon guessed, and unable to shift away.

“Now, now, Jaxon!” Agni shouted, trying to keep the Gerald from getting free.