His Witch To Keep (Keepers of the Veil) (10 page)

Chapter Nine

“D
id you know about the restaurant?” Alexi asked while maneuvering his car out of the parking garage. They’d been dropped at the restaurant and then backtracked to his car.

“I read about it online the other day. The juxtaposition of sushi and Italian was so weird that…well, now I’m glad I paused on that story.” She glanced around his car, a different one than the one from the other day. He was so cautious, just like she’d been taught. Always changing vehicles. Always different parking locations.

“That was pretty good back there,” he said, the reluctance in his tone obvious.

She gritted her teeth. “That was far more than pretty good. I was bloody fantastic. You’re welcome. It’s nice to be able to save your ass for once.”

He frowned. “I had my ass under control. It was yours that wouldn’t follow my plan.”

“Whatever. Get over it. You don’t have to go James Bond every time and explode something just to have an escape plan. Where are we going?” She crossed her arms over her chest and slumped in the seat, snuggling into his tuxedo jacket. It dwarfed her and smelled of him.

“One of my safe places. It’s another few minutes.” He wove through the congested Friday night streets into Brooklyn. He turned the heat to full blast and flicked on her seat warmer.

“Thanks,” she mumbled. She squinted against oncoming headlights. They were not sleeping together. She couldn’t live through another fuck-and-run. Him with her was about her getting his help. Nothing more.

Her mind slid back to the bathroom. Just the memory of how easily he made her body sing and knew all the right buttons to push had her burning on high heat within seconds. She shifted on the now too-warm seat and turned off the warmer. How she wanted to despise the control he had over her, but she liked his touch. And wanted a whole lot more.

She followed him into the foyer of an aged apartment building that could do with a good power wash inside and out. Cracked, stained plaster walls and dim lighting signaled decades of maintenance delinquency. She expected a bit more glamour given how much she suspected Alexi made off each hit.

A beefy guy with a has-been body blocked their way. Greasy black hair had been slicked away from his receding widow’s peak. Each ear was lined with hoops, and a large bar pierced his right eyebrow.

The roadblock crossed his arms and clucked a threatening
I don’t think so
. “Yuri got dressed up and got himself some pussy for tonight?”

Alexi dropped his head and stooped his shoulders. In a thick Russian accent he said, “Just going home. Let us by.”

“You fucking Commies. Trying to destroy the city with your foul Mafia shit.” The guy pushed Alexi backward and brandished a switchblade. Alexi stumbled into the wall with a force that knocked his head against the cracked plaster.

In Lithuanian Serenity asked, “
Kas yra j
ū
s
ų
žaidimas?
”
What is your game?

“
Jis n
ė
ra verta kovoti.
”
He is not worth the fight
, he replied. In accented English he said, “He’s my landlord’s son.”

“You’s a Commie bitch? Don’t you be speaking that shit. Let me show you what I think of Commies.” He smashed his fist into Alexi’s cheek.

Oh, hell no.
She slammed the side of her palm into the guy’s windpipe, not enough to crush but enough to push him away from Alexi and paralyze him. His blade clattered on the floor. She kicked his nuts and grabbed the knife. As he crouch-clutched his balls, she placed her hand around his larynx, yanking his head backward into her chest, and pressed the knife into his back.

The guy stiffened.

She faked a thick Russian accent. “Move and I’ll slice your left kidney. Then you will die a slow and very painful death. You understand? Nod for me.”

He nodded.

“If I hear that you so much as enter the same breathing space as Yuri, I will find you and carve little pieces out of your body before I shove this knife into a vital organ and let you bleed slowly until you die. Alone. In pain.” She pressed the dim mak pressure point below his chin over his carotid artery. He slid to the ground, unconscious. With a scowl she stepped away, resisting the feel-good temptation to kick the shit out of his face.

“I didn’t see that coming…that you’d…” Alexi’s eyes swirled with emotion when they glanced up from the unconscious guy.

“Do you always see what’s coming?” she asked, motioning for him to lead onward.

He led up countless flights of wood stairs with flaky paint in silence to a top-floor corner apartment. His fingers flew over his smartphone. The door unlocked. High-tech. Very cool. A small electronic beep as they entered signaled what she suspected was a deactivated alarm.

The moment the door closed, she asked again. “Do you always see what happens before it happens?”

He ignored her and punched in a complicated code into the alarm panel on the wall.

She hit his shoulder at the perfect point she knew would force him to turn to face her. “Stop evading my questions. Tell me.”

O
ut of instinct Alexi caught her hand on its arc toward his cheek. He whirled and trapped her against the wall, restraining each of her hands with one of his. Her pulse pounded in her throat, and her eyes dilated.

Damn it. She was just as turned on by this as he was.

He said, “You should fear me.” He was death and destruction, capable of annihilating anyone in his path. She ignited that death risk to volatile, which made him triply dangerous to everyone except her. Her only risk from him was that he’d give in to temptation and fuck her senseless.
You idiot. Why’d you even let your mind go there?

He needed to scare her…to push her away before he lost control and devoured her.

She said, “If you meant to kill me, you would’ve done so long ago. I want to understand how you do what you do. Can you see the future?”

She wanted him to let her in.

Silently, he tried to sort through the shock in his brain. He’d thought himself impossible to shock. No one ever had a better plan than him, but she’d proven him wrong. Then she’d stepped up to defend him. He couldn’t remember a time when anyone had done that for him. He didn’t need another’s help. He had expected her to follow his lead with the landlord, using the cover of cowardice to perpetuate invisibility. What she’d done had been unexpected. Beyond his mild irritation at her for jumping in, he was flattered. And goddamn if his heart didn’t split wide-open with forbidden emotion that was best immediately forgotten.

She was fiercely protective of anyone weaker and anyone she cared for. He’d brooded on this trait in her many times when her actions infuriated him. She would always do whatever was needed to protect. He wasn’t weaker and could barely process the idea she might care for him enough to come to his defense, despite his abysmal treatment of her in the past. The topper on his shock sundae was realizing that he needed someone like her to be as fierce for him as she was for those in her family circle. He needed that from her.

He released her arms. “I can glimpse into the immediate future.” To halt the expected round of twenty questions, he latched his mouth onto hers, cradling her neck firmly with his palm.

She pulled away from the kiss and looped her delicate arms around his neck. Her blue eyes glittered as if she knew exactly the distraction he’d hoped to cause. She whispered, “Thank you.” She kissed the spot where that bastard’s fist had connected with his cheek.

Her mouth skimmed along his cheek and landed on his lips. It wasn’t a teaser kiss. It wasn’t gentle. It was open mouth, tongue thrusting, demanding. She nipped his lower lip. Then trailed kisses down his neck while murmuring, “How did you become a death reaper?”

Awash in the sensation of her mouth’s downward trek as she slowly unbuttoned his dress shirt, he barely processed her question. His uncle’s warning flashed through his brain:
Never tell anyone. Telling creates a weak link that will lead to your death. It happened before. Do not. Ever.

He moaned and slammed his eyes shut when her hands trailed down his abdomen. She unfastened his trousers. One small hand wrapped him. Sparks exploded behind his eyelids.
Please, don’t stop.

But she did. She paused her downward kissing trek to ask, “Are you remembering the feel of my mouth on you?” She freed him completely from his pants. The cool air rushed over his cock.

Bloody hell. He could withstand torture of any kind without breaking and had almost died more than once from such agony without a chance of talking. But this woman… He’d spew his entire life story after about thirty more seconds of this. But damned if he was stopping her now. He wanted her mouth there.

She slid down his body, her hand closed around his shaft, and her tongue licked its head.

“Serenity…”

Her lips opened and drew him in, her tongue running up the underside of the sensitive head until he groaned. His eyes rolled back. Sweat broke out on his back. She took him deep until he brushed the back of her throat, sucking and licking as she went. His balls tightened. Every rational thought fled his brain.

He groaned and gripped the back of her head to get deeper.

She gasped and pulled off him.

He lifted her quickly into the air and pinned her against the wall, supporting her with a thigh between her legs. He lowered his head and pressed his open mouth to the skin of her neck.

She chuckled. “Still can’t stand to lose control?” Her body arched toward him with a moan when he gently nipped her.

Her panties-shielded core slammed into his cock. Alexi growled deep in his throat and bit down on her shoulder and rolled his erection against her. He was going to rip that cloth away. But first, a little tit for tat was called for.

He slid one hand up her thigh and whispered, “Tell me what or who threatens you.” His other hand he slid to cup her ass. He kissed his way to her ear. Gently he bit down on her earlobe.

She gasped.

He ordered, “Spread your legs.” His hand slid beneath her panties, fingers parting her folds. She was so wet. So slick for him. A few strokes across her clit and she moaned. She pulled his head down to hers for a deep kiss. Her hand squeezed the nape of his neck as he increased the speed of his stroking.

“I want you,” she whispered. “I can’t wait anymore.”

“You will tell me.” He bent at the knees and lifted her into his arms.

“First, tell me more about what you are,” she demanded.

They stared at each other in a standoff.

Finally she said, “Fuck me again. Then tell me later.” She rocked against his cock, eliciting a moan from him.

He carried her into the bedroom. The few rooms of the apartment were dim, shadowy, and filled with stuffy, overheated air. The unassuming queen bed had been left partially unmade. He never left it unmade. Normally he’d care. Little details such as cleanliness and perfection drove him. This signaled someone had been in here. Someone sloppy or obvious. It could only be his brother. No one else could’ve gotten past his security system and then have the audacity to leave a big fuck-you.

Right now, it didn’t matter. He’d future checked to ensure no one was here to attack them in the next little while. All that mattered was this spectacular woman.

His knee dented the mattress, and the old springs groaned complaint as he placed her beneath him. His thigh nudged between her legs.

Her hands fisted in his shirt, dragging him closer. She whispered, “I need you. Fast and hard. It’s been too long.”

“I’ll give you what you need. But…” He kissed her hungrily and then pulled away when he drew a moan from her. “I can’t give you more than tonight.”

Chapter Ten

S
erenity’s heart beat so hard and so fast that she wondered if he heard it. This man turned her on in ways she had never before experienced. She dreamed about sex with Alexi. Ached for it. In the past she’d taken any mission that might bring her near him. Even though she’d avoided him for the past few months, that need for him hadn’t diminished.

He stared down at her, a myriad of emotions playing out across his striking face. Then he arched her back upward and unzipped the dress. It was off her body before her relieved sigh ended.

He leaned back and removed his shirt, revealing his hard, cut muscles. The sight distracted her. She reached out to touch him, to trace the lettering across his chest. “What does it mean?”

His head moved in toward hers. “It’s just a mark. An involuntary brand.”

“Is it about you being a death—”

His mouth slammed onto hers, cutting her off. A groan rippled from deep in her chest. He hooked his fingers over her underwear to peel them off her in a smooth move.

Then he stretched her hands above her head, her breasts now close to spilling from the miniscule cups she’d used with the dress. His thighs spread hers. The hot length of him teased her naked sex. From her perspective of his broad shoulders, corded muscles, and powerful arms, he looked like he could break her in half if he wanted to.

His lips latched onto her shoulder, and he bit her. She jerked when his teeth grazed her flesh. His tongue then lapped over the bite.

She licked the exposed column of his neck. The salty taste of his skin exploded in her mouth. He tasted so friggin’ good. She felt bound. Helpless. She’d never wanted to feel this way until she met him.

His green eyes smoldered as the only point of color on his face. He moved to contain both of her hands in one of his. With his free hand, he caressed her breasts through the bra. One flick of his fingers and her breasts spilled free, nipples hard and pointed. He leaned in and stroked his tongue across one of her nipples. Then he nipped. White-hot need funneled straight to her core. With a cry she arched her back off the bed.

He wasn’t gentle, and she didn’t want him to be. His tongue lashed each nipple, bringing her to a desperate edge. She tugged to free her hands. She needed to touch him.

Long moments later his head lifted, and he stared at her chest. “I know you seek long-term, but I cannot promise that.”

“But you want to give me more.”

“Do not put words in my mouth. There’s just now. There can only be now.” His lips moved back to her breast. He nipped at the side of one breast, his free hand moving to her hip. God, this was what she’d craved since the first time he’d touched her. He didn’t touch her like she’d break. He touched her like a woman who could satisfy the dark drive within him. “I know you want the future. You want everything. I don’t want to hurt you, if you have your heart set on happily ever after. That’s not to be my destiny.”

“Now you’re putting words in my mouth.” She stretched upward beneath him, arched closer to rub against his erection seated so firmly against her. “All I want is you inside me.”

His mouth returned to hers. His tongue stroked and curled along the length of hers. She wondered if she could come just from his kiss. She’d never done that, but what he did to her pushed her close to that edge. He teased by licking her lips, and then he gently bit her.

Her head jerked back. She glared. No way would she submit. He chuckled, which just drove her pissed-off higher. She returned the favor and bit his lower lip. His hand tightened on the wig and jerked her back. The pins holding it in place had her head screaming, which somehow made her moan harder. He slammed his lips over hers and released her wrists.

She raked her nails down his chest. He didn’t flinch. But she felt his lips curl into a sexual smile of acknowledgment.

She loved this. There was no male irritation because she wasn’t submitting. Just hunger and challenge. She said, “I’m not giving in.”

“I’m stronger,” he promised.

She wanted to control the kiss, and that was what she fought for. His arms surrounded her, his head bending, forcing her backward against his powerful biceps. She shook and trembled, everywhere throbbing for him. Only him. Desperate groans of pleasure tore from her throat.

“Just tonight. I’m going to fuck you until you’re out of my head. And then we’re over.”

“We’ll never be over,” she vowed.

He kissed down her neck to her collarbone.

She said, “Us together will always be in your head. You can’t run from it.” Pleasure like this just didn’t go away. It tormented. She’d been plagued for months. She had to believe he’d been in the same hell as she.

She smoothed her palms down his chest, running her hands along him. She closed one hand around his arousal. With the other she stroked his balls. His eyes darkened, pupils dilating so wide that the green disappeared.

He halted, darkness overshadowing him.

She bit her lip to prevent a full-fledged grin. She’d pushed him to his tolerance limit. Like her, it’d been too long since they’d been together.

He pawed at the end table beside the bed. With a smooth upward roll he covered himself with a condom in record time. His lips slammed back onto hers.

She tore her lips away. “Does that mean you bring a lot of girls here?”

A low chuckle erupted from his chest. “You are so easy to make jealous.” He ran a hand down her naked side. “I like it.”

Irritation crested. She struggled to get away from him, but he locked her tight beneath him.

“As I said before, there’s only you. No one since Bulgaria. In fact, no one since Israel.”

“What about Camille?”

“That’s the past. The long-ago past. Now there is only us.” He kissed her.

She pulled away. “I will kill her if I ever meet her.”

“Sexy.” He elevated her hips and thrust between her thighs in one powerful move. So deep inside her.

“Oh, God.” A momentary sense of relief at their connection swept through her, followed by urgency. She squirmed to inspire him to move.

Then he did.

She buried her hands in his hair. Her knees lifted and bent, clasping his hips as she dug her heels into the bed, seeking that perfect angle for each of his thrusts. He pulled her to the edge of the bed so he could stand. He raised her pelvis to his level and thrust harder. “Hold on to the edge of the bed,” he ordered.

Stars illuminated her peripherals.

“Say my name,” he panted.

Wild hunger rocked through her, seared her senses, spiraling. “I know who you are.”

His thumb slipped into the folds between her thighs to caress that hypersensitive nub.

She tossed her head backward and thrashed.

“Say it,” he ordered.

God, she hated giving him what he wanted, but her body jerked as his thumb concentrated on that hypersensitive bud. She screamed, “A…Alexi.”

“That’s my
graži ragana
.” Beautiful witch. His thumb disappeared. He cradled her butt slightly higher to hit that spot she’d been seeking. His breathing turned harsher as he hammered into her. “Damn you. Just for tonight, I will own your soul.” His gaze burned into her, glazed over with passion and torment.

Her explosion detonated. She clung to him as he followed behind her. God, what an expression he had with his neck muscles straining and eyes squeezed shut. When his eyes finally opened, she stared into his hazed-out bliss. She clung to the desire for more time, which he denied, but she suspected he wanted.

L
ying face-to-face, Serenity touched the stylized letters on his chest. “Tell me about this tattoo.”

His gaze cut to stubbornness.

“Please,” she added.

“Many have asked over the years…”

“As in many women?” She instantly hated the faceless females who had lain like this with him.

His lips turned upward. “I didn’t say that.”

She scowled at him. “I don’t handle sharing very well. I sucked at it as a child and never quite mastered it as an adult.”

He chuckled and brushed hair off her forehead. “It is dangerous…to know a lot about me.”

“According to you, after the hotel tonight I could be linked to you, which is dangerous enough. I’ve been to the edge. I’m not afraid of dying.”

His finger traced her earlobe, sending chills skittering down her arms. Softly he said, “There is a difference between not fearing death itself and being ready for it. Are you ready for death? Ready to give up everything?”

She wanted this. Him. And wherever this was going between them. She
didn’t
want to give up living. “Are you threatening to kill me if you tell me about this?” She smiled at the cliché.

“There are gods involved. Us together is complicated by the unpredictability of their intentions.”

She rolled her eyes. “I am the descendant of a Pleiades goddess. I can hop to a different dimension. You don’t need to lecture me on gods and the bizarre.”

“True.” He gazed at her for a long few moments and then released a long sigh.

“This lettering…” She traced her fingers over the unfamiliar words in stylized lettering. It was raised like a brand instead of a tattoo. Yet it had colors of blue and red.

“When my uncle died, this mark appeared on my chest.” He traced a finger over one of the most prominent raised areas. “I don’t know what it says, but I assume it marks me for what I am.”

A god mark. Very cool. When she married, her destined guy would get a god mark. She wondered what it would look like. “Did it hurt?”

“What?” His hand dropped away from the letters. He gazed at her.

“Did it hurt when it appeared?”

“Yes. It burned.”

“Can you choose not to be a death reaper?”

He shook his head. “Like you, we have little choice in this. It’s hereditary…the first son.”

“It sucks. The eldest Pleiad descendant daughter inherits the curse to be the one that has the big gifts. I assume you know this, working for the OLM.” She ran her tongue over her lip scar.

He traced his forefinger across the scar in the wake of her tongue. “It’s beautiful. A badge of courage. It drives me crazy.”

“The healers always want to fix it.”

“Why do you keep it, then?”

She shrugged. “I like the reminder of what they did. Of what I lost. Forget it.”

Darkness passed over his features. “Their time will come.”

“Why are you working for those witch hunters? I can’t believe…how can you participate in what they do?”

“Vengeance.”

“For what? Me?” A seed of joy sprouted in her chest.

He traced her lip scar. “You’re
pasirinktas vienas
.” A Chosen One.

“What does that mean?” She narrowed her eyes, suspecting she wasn’t going to like the answer.

“It means you have an important destiny. And I protect you as a part of my code. I am obliged to protect you. No one gets to hurt you. I had to learn what the OLM did to you to learn how to prevent it from happening to you again. And how to make them pay for what they did.”

The seed of happiness in her chest withered and died. “So there’s nothing personal about your freaky stalking of me? It’s all about your boss forcing you to do this?”

“I have few choices in my life.” He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “But Hades never
forced
me to protect you. I wanted to.”

“What does a Chosen One mean to you? That I’m the descendant of a god, or something else?”

“You are unique.” His face hardened.

At this point she might as well return to her original question. Maybe she could get an answer. “What exactly do you have to do as a death reaper?”

He remained mute. Another brick wall of stubbornness.

She slow smiled and rolled on top of him, kissing along his jaw and down his neck. “Tell me about what you must do for Hades.”

“It will not work. Serenity…” He ended with a hiss when her tongue circled his nipple and then she gently bit the peak.

She treated the opposite nipple to similar attention. Then began a slow kissing descent, tracing her tongue over each ridge and depression. “If you won’t tell me
what
you do, then you being the eldest means, if you’re like me, you have to have children. At least one son?” Her mouth closed around his straining cock.

He cursed in his native tongue.

She paused. “So…if you aren’t allowed a relationship, do you leave some poor mother to raise your kid alone?”

Hoarsely he gritted out, “No.”

She raked her teeth down the side of his cock and then surrounded him again. She felt him swell. She pulled back and stared up at him in a silent demand for an answer. Finally she said, “I’ll get up and leave this bed right now if you don’t tell me how it works.” She ran a finger over his straining length.

“They should hire you to torture people.”

“You want my mouth on every other guy’s disgusting—”

“No,” he snarled. His body bowed toward her when she licked him. “Fuck. The eldest son of my lineage inherits the duty but does not have children. No family for me. No kids. The duty to have the child successor falls to the second son, my brother.”

“Nikolai? Why can’t you have children?”

He groaned when she licked him. “The rules.”

Such a lonely existence. “Hades’s rules?”

He shrugged. “Rules are rules.”

She took him deep into her mouth. He gripped the back of her head as his hips pumped his release.

Afterward she rested her head on his abdomen and absently traced the lettering across his chest. “Why do you think the gods are throwing us together? I haven’t heard of god-descended families mixing. Well, I didn’t even know there were other descendants caught up in bullshit like us. There’s no way this…us…is random.”

“I don’t know.” He ran a hand over her cheek. “I don’t like that.”

“You don’t like the fact they threw us together, or not knowing why?” She propped herself on an elbow to stare at him. God, he had a beautiful body. All lean muscle and angles.

“The why of it. I don’t regret. I only know what I was taught and what I have been ordered to do over the decades. I don’t think we’re supposed to be sexually involved. I suspect my only purpose in your life is protection. I don’t get forever. Only right now.” He traced her chin down to her collarbone. “Hades would never allow anyone but himself to control me.”