Ritual Magic (14 page)

Solomon's hand gripped my shoulder
supportively and my eyes darted up towards him, pulling what
strength I could from him as I scrambled for ways to defuse this
disastrous situation. As I looked up into his eyes, I could hear
the subtle roll of the ocean in the background as well as smell the
salt of the sea against the back of my nose. It still made no sense
how that would be, but I was finding that a sudden sense of calm
was washing over me as I looked around the room for more support.
Tisha was watching Von from her seat on my left, and her vibe gave
off a distinct glow of power.

"Von, I sense that you are apprehensive
about this unique situation, but as you can see...we all agree that
this must be done. Cora
must
be conceived by the five and
the ritual
must
take place before the new moon."

Von shook his head as he continued to look
through the window, down at the flow of ants below us, rushing off
to their busy lives filled with daily stress and worry. "I won't be
a part of this. I know the prophecy of which you speak, and I doubt
seriously that the girl standing next to that
demon
is
actually the child of prophecy." He shook his head in adamant
idiocy. "You are all just kidding yourselves."

"Ask your questions, Von, please." I
pleaded, "You will instantly know that we are all telling the truth
if you would just take the time to get to
know
Cora. You
have to convince yourself that we are telling the truth, but the
only way to do that would be to
ask
the questions that you
know could only be answered by your own child. By your own
daughter." My breathing hitched as my heart continued to pound in
my ears ever so slightly. "Just take the time to know." I shook my
head because a part of me just
knew
that he was way too
stubborn to listen to any voice of reason.

Tisha stood up and walked over to Von's spot
by the window to place a hand on his shoulder, just like Solomon
had done for me. Von's head turned slightly towards hers as if he
was reading her mind. "No," he said simply as he turned back to the
park scene outside, his eyes glazed over.

Leo looked up at the group as we all sat in
deadly silence. "I would like to invite everyone here to my castle.
You would, of course, have the freedom to come and go as you
please, so fear of confinement would not be a question. We need to
be somewhere where Cora will have the resources to train and we can
discuss this ritual in more depth." His growing, lecherous grin was
meant for only me and I knew it.

"I don't think anyone
touches
me
during the ceremony, Leo." I snorted at him as he blinked his eyes
innocently.

"Is this the truth?" Gabriel straightened
up, seemingly glowing as he pivoted in his chair to face me
directly. He was obviously overwhelmed with the exciting idea that
he wasn't going to have to touch me to give me the child of his
vision. Of course, in his vision it had been a boy, but still, he
was seeing nothing but benefits from this whole ritual business.
"No one will touch Celeste during the ceremony to conceive this
child?" His strong, baritone voice rang with excitement as I
shifted in my seat uncomfortably.

"Geesh, Gabriel," I huffed, "let the whole
world
know that you would be thrilled not to have to touch
me, will ya?" It wasn't like I
wanted
him to touch me at all
either, but he didn't have to act like it was such a wonderful
bonus. "I would prefer to keep you at arm's length myself, but why
be so obvious about it?" I shook my head and rolled my eyes.

Solomon chuckled underneath his breath,
which earned him a sideways glance from yours truly. He liked the
idea of no one else touching me, just as much as Gabriel was
savoring the idea of keeping his distance from my person.

Gabriel beamed at me, clearly wanting to
explain what direction his thoughts had taken him. "I told you that
we didn't have to love each other to be soulmates." He smiled at me
broadly, a final nail in the coffin of my feelings towards him.

At some point in my life, my mother and his
had pledged us to each other. We had released each other from that
commitment but we knew somewhere, deep down, that we were
soulmates. But for us, as soulmates, we just had to be in each
other's lives one way or another. It was not like we had to be
together, which Gabriel was making obnoxiously clear. He had said
before that he didn't have to love me to be my soulmate, and it
made the idea of a soulmate even less attractive to me every single
minute.

My mind flicked through memories like a
Rolodex as I accessed information about soulmates. I faintly
recalled a belief that one person could have several soulmates—that
a person could have individuals that kept popping up lifetime after
lifetime until you finally got it right. Maybe they weren't all
soulmates, but they were supposed to be there. I felt like, if
anything, this was what Gabriel was like to me—a bad penny that
kept popping up in my life until I finally got it right with him.
This
seemed to be exactly what he wanted.
Do I even
believe in past lives?
I didn't know.

Turning my head back to look towards Von, I
figured it was time to move things along. "I think that we should
accept Leo's generous offer for accommodations. Trust me when I say
that his furnishings are lavish, and he has more than enough room
for all of us to attend to our concerns in comfort."
Did I sound
convincing enough?

Solomon snorted next to me and we shared a
quick smile before I turned back to the rest of the room.
Unless
you are being 'accommodated' in the dungeon
, I thought to
myself.

"And why should we trust this...demon?" Von
turned on Leo as he bristled at the look of affection that Leo was
giving to Cora, brushing her hair back off her shoulder like a
loving father as he continued to whisper little bits of comfort to
her in Italian.

Releasing Cora from his arms, Leo turned to
face Von. "Because I took a vow." He nodded in my direction.

"He is bound to Mother's protection and
safety. Her will is his." Cora giggled underneath her breath
because she knew that she had forced him to take the oath, and he
was now bound to the whims of a shaman queen.

Leo looked at her as if he knew the joke was
on him, but he tilted his head in Von's direction. "No one under
her protection will come to harm. There is plenty of room to
practice, discuss and plan. All will be accommodated richly and in
perfect safety." He bowed down formally, sweeping one arm into his
waist and the other out to his side in a fluid sweep. I instantly
liked Leo even more than I had before—he admittedly had style.

"We will accept your offer." I said firmly,
ensuring that everyone in the room could hear me clearly.

Von's head snapped over in my direction as
he furrowed his brows in dissention. "I would prefer not to be
involved in any of this," his steely voice sank in the quiet of the
room and my eyes automatically narrowed on him, tiny tints of red
hedging along the outskirts of my vision.

"But
you
do not have a choice," I
said flatly. I was pulling rank and he knew it.
Queen me,
baby!

Pausing for one intensely uncomfortable
moment, Von gave me an empty stare as he nodded slowly, almost
painfully so. He knew that I was pulling his chain, and he was not
going to make it easy to convince him. He would set his heels in
every inch of the way and it would be like pulling teeth to get him
to listen to anything that we had to say.

Cleansing breath, Celeste
. I released
the breath that I had been unknowingly suppressing as I turned back
to Leo. "Let's go—there's no time to waste."

Leo nodded with a broad grin and a deep bow,
drawing attention to his perfectly tailored suit just once more for
good measure. "Yes, my queen."

The castle was different when I was no
longer a hostage. The rooms were well lit and the fireplaces were
glowing with warmth. I now noticed that a door connected my room to
Solomon's, and someone had removed the tapestry that had originally
covered the main hallway door so that I could find it without going
on a hunt.

Walking over to the connecting door that
divided Solomon's and my rooms, I opened it to find Solomon
standing by the window. His body was set in profile against the
midday sun and it appeared as if he were posing for a painting that
would immortalize his godlike perfection. He was a vision of
muscular power and absolute manliness, eyeing the perimeter of the
castle with his amazing blue-green eyes that never failed to spot
the smallest of motions and tiniest of details, completely
invisible to the eye of the everyday individual.

My knees went a little weak as I took in his
profile. Amazing muscles on top of sinew and bone, golden
sun-kissed skin that spoke of hours spent outside, when I knew that
his vampire nature would have kept him from the sun. But I had
placed a spell of protection on him and he was my guard, willing to
follow me to the ends of the earth to ensure my safety. How sexy
was
that
? Now, as I watched him with the window in the
background, he was the very definition of male perfection. His
dirty blond hair flared at the edges, spiked in random peaks that
cried out 'I'm wild and I
like
it, baby!' My heart skipped a
beat when he finally turned to look at me.

"Do you like your room?" I asked as he
turned away from the window completely, leaning up against its
frame as he crossed his arms against his chest, drawing my eyes to
his bulging biceps.
As if just standing there wasn't enough for
me.
His eyes skipped around the room until they settled on me,
lighting up with a soft glow as he drank me in.

"It's slightly better than the last time I
visited." He shrugged. "But it doesn't matter, what made it
worthwhile was that you were here." He eyed me up and down like he
was deciding how to get my clothing off fast enough.

Gulp! What the heck am I wearing? I don't
remember paying any attention to that!
I looked down at my
jeans, boots and black button down blouse quickly to assess the
view that he was staring it. It was nothing to write home about,
but I felt like myself.

"Yeah, a virtual five star resort," I
laughed.

Pushing away from the window, Solomon walked
over to me and immediately wrapped me in his strong and capable
arms. His actions made it clear that he wasn't hesitating, and it
felt as if we had already waited long enough for us to feel
comfortable around each other.

Rubbing his hands up and down my back,
Solomon seemed to be deliberately bumping against the outline of my
bra, drawing my attention to the cool feel of his hands lightly
shifting the fabric that kept his palms from making direct contact
with the skin. His clean and masculine scent swirled around me,
engulfing me in every dream that I had ever had of Solomon. I was
embarrassed to admit it even to myself, but Solomon had frequented
my dreams in a starring role for quite a while.

I smiled up at him as he reached down to
kiss me, grasping my chin with his powerful hand. Pausing for a
second, his lips hovered just above mine as his eyes skimmed my
features as if he was taking full stock of every detail, committing
it all to vivid memory.

We simply stood there for a moment, staring
at each other, until he released a cool breath that kissed my lips
and sent electric sparks shooting down to my toes. It was becoming
almost too much for my overly taxed nervous system to take as I
stared up at him, waiting for him to take the kiss that I was
holding in reserve for him and his strong lips.

Sighing deeply, I realized that there was
absolutely
no way
that I was going to be able to survive the
rest of the day without him kissing me. What was he honestly trying
to do? Kill me? But I was bound and determined to have what I was
being tempted with, and I did what any red-blooded American woman
would do...I leaned in to
take
the kiss that he was so
devilishly withholding from me. And then he moaned.

His kiss was gloriously cool against my
scorching lips. We were fire and ice, and I wanted every part of
him to quench the fire that I felt growing rapidly in my body. I
leaned deeply into him and the kiss that he was assailing me with
when there was an abrupt knock at the door.

Neither one of us moved to answer, and
Solomon refused to cut away from the kiss while he pulled me in
closer to him, his muscles bulging as if inviting me to run my
fingertips across them, hungry for my touch and the feel of skin on
skin. He was insisting that we ignore the rest of the world, and my
body was eagerly agreeing with him every inch of the way. A soft
moan escaped my lips before I realized it was happening.

The knock persisted and Solomon groaned as
he turned his mouth to the side, insisting on still kissing me.
"Yes?!" He mumbled against my lips, his hands reaching down across
the back pockets of my jeans as he caressed and squeezed, lifting
me slightly in his cupped hands and causing my heart to race like
Secretariat.

"The group is awaiting you down at the
training grounds." A snarl came from the other side of the door.
"The king
requests
your attendance." The demon on the other
side of the door obviously didn't like what he was sent to share
with us.

"What direction?" Solomon pulled away from
my lips and began to paint tingling kisses against my skin from my
chin to my neck, flicking his tongue slowly against the skin gently
to tease me that much more. His hand slowly moved upward to
tenderly rub the side of my neck and skim up against my chin, where
he followed with his lips, drawing a dotted line of seduction
across my neck and chin. Who knew that area was so incredibly
sensitive? I tried not to giggle because he was actually tickling
me as he finally worked his way behind my ear, nudging in with his
nose.