If Wishes Were Horses (23 page)

He brayed out a challenge that reverberated through the clearing. Linda’s eyes widened as the stag leaped over the boundary  of the circle and charged past, the pointsof his antlers glowing like swords in the moonlight, his  hooves cutting across the earth with lethal purpose.

“Great Lady,” one of the coven murmured.

“Blessed Lord,” Linda whispered. The stag gathered itself and leaped. He wentthrough the front bay window, glass exploding like shards of rain and shimmering on the beast’s withers. The powerful  melding of  Justin and Herne, the forest god, stormed forward to protect what was theirs.

“Take the circle inside,” Linda cried out, running forward.

* * * * *

110

If Wishes  Were  Horses

Sarah lay before the fire, her beautiful body bare and licked by the firelight, theincubus buried between her legs. Justin saw all this as he crashed through the window.  His momentum did not slow. He moved forward in a run as the incubus pulled out of her body and leaped up. They met over Sarah’s inert form.

The creature seized his antlers to slow  his charge. Justin was aware his form had shifted again, so now  he had the appearance  he had in the circle, only instead of a costume, he was still a genuine melding of  man and stag, with human legs and arms but the strength and antlered deer head of  Herne. The tawny hair of the stag  ran in astripe down the center  of his broad back.

Justin’s rage propelled them both back  to the stone hearth and he pinned theincubus there for a moment. The incubus dissolved and reformed outside of the cage ofthe antlers.

Between Sarah’s legs, he had possessed Justin’s appearance, but now as he re-materialized he took his own face. It was not what the monks recorded. He had the

form of a tall and  handsome man, the man  he had once been on the mortal plane,  though in  the being’s eyes Justin saw the hatred that had turned to evil intent. Perhaps the monks and those who had died  or almost died at his hands, being so close to God, had seen his inside as his outside.

“You lost what I gave  you last time,” the incubus spat, and Justin heard the words  in his mind, as well as aloud. “You become greedy.”

“I won’t lose her to you,” Justin responded grimly. “She should be allowed to choose. You shouldn’t be allowed to take that from her. And you’re trapped here. You can’t leave.”

Linda and the summoned members of the coven slid into the room, one through theopen shattered window, two from  the hallway  entrance, two from the kitchen entrance, keeping the circle locked in place.

The creature’s gaze darted around the  room, and Justin felt him throw  out his senses, test  the strength of the binding.  A moment of panic warred with fury on theincubus’s face. “Will you keep me locked in your circle forever? You can fight me and Iwill never tire, but even with the force of Herne called into you, your human body will fail you. She will still be mine, and though I’m bound in this circle, they will not be able to stop me from taking her life.”

Justin looked toward the fire where Sarah  lay on the rug. Her eyes were vacant, her body sinuously moving, still responding to the impact of the incubus on her senses, but he could also see the rigidity  of her shoulders, the tightness of her face, and knew shewas in there, fighting. Losing.

The rage died from his eyes, replaced by hard purpose. “You’re right.” He nodded, stepping back. “This isn’t about you and  me, anyway. This is about me and Sarah.”

He turned his shoulder to the incubus and  bent over Sarah, letting the strength of Herne go,  so the flesh that came against Sarah’s flesh was all human, all  Justin. Her eyes

111

Joey W. Hill

focused, blinked hazily, and he was there, holding her, his hands on either side of her

face so she could look into his eyes.

“Sarah,” he  murmured.

She vaguely felt Linda’s presence, her and the other women. Justin’s words penetrated her mind, forcing her  to grapple with the situation.

“Trust me, Sarah,” he  murmured. “Whatever  else we are, you know when  I hold you what it is between  us. Trust me. Follow me.”

She had little other choice in this moment, but she knew, looking up into his serious eyes, that she
 
could
 
trust him. He had not been completely truthful with her,  but it was clear that now was the time to accept and  forgive, even if she could not understand.

“Okay,” she whispered, and forcing that word over her vocal cords was the hardest thing she had ever done, as if the acknowledgement had to be dragged from under a pile of rocks at the bottom of the deepest part  of the ocean. A wisp of pleasure trickled through her mind at the flare of  approval in his eyes. She was so tired and yet so aroused at once, willing and wanting him to  do anything with her, and she would let him, drifting in a haze of pleasure and dreams.

His eyes darkened and the handsome  blonde man beside him moved. No, melded…no, it was like two blurry images  coming together, only they hadn’t been blurry, but  now they were one. It was Justin’s hands touching her, but she felt them both, two presences kissing her lips, but  Justin  was in the forefront. The other was just  apleasurable, non-alarming shadow that added  caresses in places that one person could not caress all at once. She felt  hands on her breasts, and a  mouth sucking them even as Justin kissed her lips, and his hands slid down  to her hips, parted her legs. She gasped, bowing up as if touched by fire, for now his hand was there, his fingers, but so was another’s, heat balanced with cold.

“Take us both in, Sarah, heat and cold, life and death. You’re the one that can bring

the balance.”

She felt them, one overlaid on the top of  the other, but just enough off rhythm thatthe slide into her body had a double stroke  to it, the ridge of two heads rubbing her flesh, heat and cold, rousing her nerves  with the contrast. Justin’s arms were aroundher. Justin, warm, solid, real. Though the other was there, too, powerful, mesmerizing, arousing, he had nothing to offer her heart. The more she opened to Justin, the more she felt what he could give to her, would give  to her, if she’d only let go of her fears.

Her back curved up as she felt the incubus’s mouth on her, just over where Justin thrust into her. That mouth sucked her clit even as Justin’s cock found the right place deep inside her. Fingers crept under her,  caressing her, making her open wider. The two temperatures shivered up her nerve endings  and set off a spasm of ripples in her lower belly.

The incubus had his hands on her breasts, while Justin’s chest rubbed them with hisslow, deliberate movements. The incubus quickened, a seesaw inside her juxtaposed to  Justin’s slow, pumping strokes.

112

If Wishes  Were  Horses

Her body was overloading on sensations, hovering on the edge of explosive orgasm, but there was so much, she couldn’t. There was something wrong with it, like a vibrator on so high it was deadening the same nerves it was intending to stimulate. She felt like she was in a choke  hold and she could not draw breath to make the leap.

She was open to both beings, man and spirit, but more than her body was being called by one of the men. It was toward that  one her soul turned in desperation. She  feltit, as she knew she had felt it that first over-the-top night with him. The power of Earth,of the Divine. Of a Fate that could not be denied. Him. Her.

“Sarah,” Justin whispered, his eyes glittering  like the blade of a weapon. “Let go for  me, Sarah. Feel me within you. Just the heat. My body against yours, my cock within  you, my hands on your  body. That’s all there is, just the two of us.”

The chanting of the women increased, and the power emanated off Justin as he  used it, gave her breathing space, cleared a space in her mind she needed. His face  muscles quivered with the effort. She reached up, pushed through the thick presence of the incubus between  them and cupped his jaw in her hand. “Kiss me, Justin.  Please…before I die.”

“You’re not going to die,” he said fiercely, and he plunged through the incubus’s  spirit as if he were smoke and covered her mouth with his own.

Heat, wet, life. Demanding she live, he caught the fading strands of her strength with his, wrapped them around his consciousness, binding her to  him, and drove them both off the edge of that pinnacle.

Sarah screamed with the force of it, and it was just his force, for the flood of liquid  heat inside her brooked no intrusion. He used the power and resistance in her soul with  his own magic to call whatever power would aid them, bringing the Lord and Lady  down into  their coupling and shoving the incubus back on his heels, outside their

joining which had no place for him, into the cold prison of the circle.

The magic grew as the climax continued,  and Justin’s gaze flicked briefly up to  Linda, just behind Sarah’s head. The witch nodded and the tone of her chant changed, a  chorus of destruction and creation  both, two parts of the whole.

The incubus snarled and tried to escape, charging at the circle’s boundary, but the women had joined hands and  the binding  held firm.  For a moment he became more solid, the image of the corporeal form he had been, a handsome man carrying his hatred stamped on his face and on his existence. His body began to fade, and Sarah’s glazed eyes registered the gradual impression of  the firelight shining through his form.

Justin chanted softly, firmly against Sarah’s  ear as he continued to stroke within her, hard and strong. In between the words she heard his murmured caress to  her.

“Mine.”

Sarah clung to him, simply held on as the aftershocks of her climax rippled through her with each stroke. She desperately clung  to the light that was him, her promise of life, of survival.

113

Joey W. Hill

The incubus wailed. The coven grimly continued its work. His body’s transparent state began to blur, a fading into amorphous colors. Tendrils of his form grasped at  Justin’s shoulders, but they lost their purchase as the cloud of energy floated upward, still within the circle’s boundary, but with  no control of  its direction any longer.

“There is hope for you, demon,” Linda’s voice resonated through the room, and thepower of the Goddess was in her face.

“You have been rendered powerless on  this plane. You are no more than a seductive whisper in a woman’s ear, able to  turn her heart only for a passing thought.  You no longer have the power to command  mortal souls to your will, or transfer the seed of men to her womb. If you ever wish to  be more than a shadow again, ever wish to achieve the grace of a new life blessed by My Love, you shall have to find thatfoundation you lack, and suffer and sacrifice  for it, until you rectify your past harm.

“I pitied your pain, but transgressions demand recompense. Go, my child.”

In an  eerie  movement, very un-Linda like, the priestess raised her hand, her two fingers crooked, and waved him away. His form  dissolved as if swallowed by the air.

Sarah was suddenly conscious of the hum of  her air conditioner, the refrigerator in the kitchen, the ice maker tumbling more  cubes into the catch tray. Innocuous, comforting sounds. She was also aware of  a pounding in her head that was growing stronger, overwhelming everything else, including the weakening beat of her heart.

“Justin,” she whispered. “Hold me. I’m so cold.”

They had been too late to save her, but they had defeated the incubus. He wouldn’t hurt anyone again. Sarah accepted that, too  tired to do anything else. The world became  Justin’s alarmed face, then just his eyes. Her life force slipped out of her, a breathagainst the  press of his lips onto hers. She wished she had the strength to touch his faceonce more. Darkness closed in, and all wishes  faded into dreams.

114

If Wishes  Were  Horses

Chapter 16

Beeping. She knew what beeping meant. It  meant you were alive, barely. When shewoke up in the hospital after the drug  shooting, she had learned how badly she was hurt by the erratic rate of that beeping heart  monitor. She had learned first off that the fact she was aware  of the beeping was good, very good, no matter how offbeat or slow

it was.

This was slow, but the  rhythm tended to increase once consciousness came, becausethat was when the pain hit. She wasn’t disappointed.

The gunshot wounds  had been a centralized focus of the agony that radiated throughout her system. This was a throbbing ache  with  no  source  point,  as  if  her  entirebody had been tumbled down a hill in a drum.

“Hurts.” She whispered it, and tears rolled out of her eyes at just that movement.

“I know, baby. I’m here.”

His hand on  hers, his voice rough with emotion. No man had ever thought to call her baby, ever thought she might need that.  Hell, she hadn’t thought she needed it. But he had. He  was there. He hadn’t taken off, he had fought the bad guy with her. He had covered her back, her  whole body if she wanted to get literal about it. He had been there, protected her, stopped evil.

“Don’t go,” she said, a breath of sound,  but he was bent forward, close enough to hear.

“I won’t.”

* * * * *

Two weeks later, the hospital had pumped enough fluids and painkillers into Chief  Sarah Wylde to give her body the chance to  recover from the mysterious incident that had lowered her entire body below freezing.  Astonishingly there  had been no frostbite or amputation. The cold had simply stopped the function of her vital organs for a dangerous amount of time.