Something About Witches (6 page)

She was already aching. She didn’t want this conversation. The look in Derek’s intense dark blue eyes was already haunting her, vibrating through her body. “He’s probably been with hundreds of women since three years ago.” Ruby tried to shrug, shoulders weighted down with an avalanche of hard emotions. “Derek Stormwind is far too virile, too close to nature….”

That was the thing about him. Though Derek said he was human, she’d felt things from him that were far more than human. When they’d walked on a beach and he embraced her, she’d felt the movement of the tides and currents through his kiss, inhaled salt and sea through his skin. In the mountains, it was as if the grand panorama of peaks, the smallest woodland creatures, the silver winding ribbons of creeks, streams and rivers, all of it, were coursing through him. When she’d visited such places alone, that quiet tranquility she felt, a sense of the powerful energy of nature itself, that connected animal, rock, tree, sky, stars and moon…. They all made her realize it wasn’t in his magic. It was
him
. He was a conduit to the Earth, to all four of the elements and the sacred energy that connected them. He was pure power, gentle rain and terrible thunder both, and no woman with a pulse could resist that. Even zombie women would probably respond to him.

“Raina, with the Great Rite alone, he could get himself all sorts of available pussy. I’m sure he hasn’t been hurting for it.”

“You are far more than sex to him. And misusing the Great Rite is the last thing he’d ever do. He is tediously noble, a true white knight. With a deliciously demanding, alpha dominant edge to him when it comes to that out-front sexuality of his.”

“Thanks for twisting that knife.”

“Oh, I’ll bet he twists his knife quite capably….”

“Raina.”
Pushing up to her knees, Ruby snatched a pillow, swatted it at her. Raina grabbed the other cushion and returned blow for blow, until Ruby was laughing despite herself. She stopped in the middle of the room, breathing hard. The swirling laughter stirred up other things, sediment that shouldn’t be disturbed.

“Sweetheart.” Raina’s arms were around her, Ruby’s suddenly wet face pressed into her shoulder. Ruby fought it back, but it was too hard. She had to let some of it out, one tiny sentence.

“I’ve missed him so much.” She gripped Raina harder to contain the sob behind that simple, devastating truth. This was so not good. “I can’t have him, Raina. I just can’t. Don’t ask why.”

“Bullshit, dove.” But Raina’s voice was gentle as she rocked her, held her together. “Maybe this trip to help the coven will be good, help you both figure some things out. Though fair warning— if you invite him back into your life, I’ll continue to treat him like the sanctimonious prick he is.”

Ruby shook her head, stepped back. “This may bring closure, but it’s not a new beginning for us, Raina. That part of my life is done.”
It has to be. There’s too much blood, too much pain…. Too much water has gone under the bridge. And that water is the River Styx, all about death and endings. Not life and new beginnings.

“All right, then.” Raina gave her a piercing look, but
didn’t push it further, to Ruby’s great relief. Moving to the bar, she fished around, found what looked like a deep purple wine and splashed a small amount in a shot glass, pushing it over to Ruby. “That’s all the more reason you should try this little room of mine. You’re an emotional mess, and it will help you get the physical urges under control. You’re emanating sexual need a ten-cylinder Dodge Ram vibrator couldn’t handle, darling.”

Still holding the pillow, Ruby pantomimed another swat at her. Raina countered with a wave of her hand that pulled the cushion from Ruby’s grasp and returned it to the couch with her own pillow. It was a demonstration of the witch’s effortless control over her magic, a control she’d always had.

Ruby grimaced, affecting a look of resignation, but she knew too much about the pleasures of Raina’s house, at least by description. She wasn’t going to resist Raina’s demand. Her body was revved up way too high to do any well-grounded energy work, but because of what was in that letter, she
had
to do energy work tonight. Her paperwork was important, but not as important as the protection spells she had to lay down before she left. She took the shot glass, sniffed at it. “Raina, there’s nightshade in this.”

“Yes, it helps the room do what it needs to do. Not enough to poison you, dove, I promise.”

“How comforting.”
What the hell.
Ruby downed it in a quick movement, was surprised to find it potent and sweet. “Okay. Let’s go do the ‘Escape from My Agonizing Reality Room.’ ”

“What a catchy title. Thank God guns don’t require clever marketing campaigns. Just, ‘If you want to kill something, I’m here to help.’ ”

“Good customer service doesn’t have to be complex.”

“Too true.”

D
ESIGNED TO MANUFACTURE A FAVORITE FANTASY
straight from your mind….

“Focus on the candle, think of your fantasy, and the magic unfolds. The client also has the option of not thinking of a fantasy at all, letting the magic choose from the unconscious. The stronger that unconscious fantasy, the more likely it is to take precedence during the session, no matter what you actively choose.” At Ruby’s alarmed look, Raina’s tone gentled. “It will be what you want, dove. Don’t worry about that.”

Then, becoming brisk once again, she added, “Don’t use any active magic to force it, because my clients won’t be able to do so. Just the focus of your own desires, where your mind takes you. When you’re ready for it to end, there’s a candle present throughout the session, in one guise or another. Blow it out. But don’t blow it out too soon, or I’ll call you a fat-assed chicken and make you do it all again.”

“Your ass is bigger.”

“Unlike you, I believe eating is required to sustain life.”

A complex, powerful spell designed to be harmless fantasy.
This was the type of thing that drove Derek crazy when it came to Raina. But Raina was Raina. Sometimes Ruby thought Raina’s mother had chosen her name based on the adage: “Might as well try to stop the rain from coming down.”

She tried to relax, but apprehension still knotted the muscle group between her shoulders when Raina closed the door, leaving her in a chamber the size of a bedroom. Nothing was in it except a polished oak pedestal and the burning candle sitting on it. Though mundane eyes couldn’t see them, Ruby discerned the circle drawn on the floor, the symbols marking thirteen evenly spaced points. Symbols also marked the key compass points on the walls and ceiling. Noting their placement and meaning, she appreciated the elegant craft that had allowed an enclosed space for magic to ricochet and become four-dimensional.

Her apprehension had nothing to do with a lack of confidence in Raina’s abilities. Probably just the opposite. Fantasies weren’t harmless, not for her. That driving hunger came from a black well inside her, and it took very little for it to boil forth. Just being here, in Raina’s house of nonstop fornication, was enough to have it doing a clog dance on her uneasy stomach. Most days she could put a tight lid on it, but then yearning desire, a prettier but no less demanding face of that hunger, would sneak up on her in dreams. Sometimes it chased her through the day. If it became unbearable, she was like an AA-attending alcoholic, overwhelmed by the never-ending craving. A quick trip out of town and a violent binge with Mikhael was followed by the hangover of shame and renewed resolve, couched in the battered lie that it would never happen again.

In short, she spent more time quelling such imaginings than dwelling upon them. So why the hell had she agreed to do this?

She was being a drama queen. This was just a favor for Raina. A test. Like she was in a laboratory, wearing a white coat, very clinical. Of course, it was far more likely she was the lab rat and Raina was wearing the white coat. A sexy,
tailored lab coat, made by a French or Italian designer. Cheap synthetic blends had never touched those silken shoulders.

Ruby put her hand on her abdomen, soothing that clog dance. Okay, she could do this. She’d fantasize about a long bubble bath with a good book. The New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys would be serenading her from a corner. A few of them could multitask and give her a foot and back massage. Wash her hair while crooning one of their love songs. That would be perfect. A perfect, safe fantasy.

She positioned herself in one corner of the room. She didn’t have to act as obliviously defenseless as most humans did. It didn’t affect the activation of the spell, after all.

Interestingly, the very moment she decided she was ready, the room darkened around the candle like a movie theater, only this was a deep gray mist, swirling around the flame and outward. It closed in on her, took up all the available space. She could still see the candle’s flame, but she lost her tame fantasy, her mind swiveling toward fearful memory. Things could come out of the mists, things that were far from harmless. Panic drilled holes in her diaphragm.

A breath away from tossing up protection spells that would take out that candle with the force of a Cat 5 hurricane and blast away all of Raina’s painstaking work, she saw the mist start to clear.

The rush of ocean waves reached her ears, the comforting salt aroma filling her nose. Powdery white sand was under her feet. She stood on a moonlit beach, the water stretched to the horizon, the white curve of sand inviting long, romantic strolls. A hammock was strung between two palm trees. On a table next to it was a platter of fruit and cheese, glasses of wine picking up the glimmer of the moonlight.

All it needed was a zoom-in on the wine label and an invisible announcer intoning, “Please drink responsibly.”

But it was okay. This was beautiful, serene. Only the two wineglasses bugged her. One would be better, more aligned with the fantasy she had in mind. Or a stack of the plastic
kind, to accommodate both bands if they needed to wet their throats between sets for her private concert.

When her gaze strayed back to the shoreline, her heart accelerated like one of those maniacal cymbal-clashing monkeys. Derek was coming out of the water.

Like that night on the beach over three years ago, he was wearing only a pair of jeans, plastered to his long thighs. He hadn’t had any trunks, and the beach had been a little less private than this one, so he’d stripped off his shirt, shucked the boots and socks, diving in after her in denim. That lack of privacy hadn’t mattered so much in the water. He’d untied her bikini bottoms with deft fingers and then, with a smile made for sin, tied them around her wrists. Linking her bound hands around his neck for an anchor, he’d proceeded to do things that had her clinging helplessly to him, gasping. She remembered the heated strength of his hands pressed against her wet flesh, his husky voice against her ear as he held her so close, all her limbs locked around him because she never, ever wanted to let him go, to let that moment go.

Goddess, he looked so good. The water sluiced down his wide chest. Unlike the hairless boys of the current popular pinups, he had a silken mat of dark chest hair narrowing to that appealing arrow that cut straight down his ridged abdomen. The water weighed the jeans down enough that his hip bones showed, the musculature over them. His lean form had never experienced an ounce of fat, let alone the blasphemy of a love handle. Being a Guardian of the Light meant battles where his life depended on quick reflexes, stamina and a body in top peak form. He took his workouts seriously. He ran, kickboxed, did a dozen different types of martial arts, lifted weights with the dedication of a Mr. Universe.

However, because the magic gobbled calories as fast as she could down a pound bag of M& M’S, he didn’t have a bodybuilder’s thick physique. Instead, he had the build of a quarterback, ready to throw a seventy-five-yard pass to win the game.

She wanted the fantasy to freeze-frame here. She at a
safe distance, looking at him like any woman on the beach would, imagining all the things she could do with him. That he could do to her. The moment she touched him, even as illusion, need was going to overwhelm her. But she didn’t have the strength to deny herself, just as she’d feared. As Raina had known. Her gaze followed those drops of water over firm skin she wanted to touch, lick, bite. She wanted to rub herself all over him like an animal, re-marking him with her scent. He’d been hers. He
was
hers. The power of it rolled up in her, a savage, feral female animal.

His broad chest expanded further, getting his breath back from his swim. His gaze covered the beach like he was seeing it for the first time, evaluating it for threats, things hidden in the shadows. That was so Derek, it almost made her smile, except the pain of memory was squeezing her heart too hard. He found her pretty quickly, standing out there in the open, staring at him with such hunger in her face.

“Hey, girl,” he murmured.

That was what he called her in their intimate moments. It wasn’t the affected “giiirll” of the urban scene, like “Girl, where
did
you get those earrings?” It was the cowboy, meeting her for the first time at the church social, doffing his hat and giving her a slow smile. When he said, “Hey, girl,” those concentrated blue eyes said he thought she was the prettiest girl in three counties, and she’d always be that way to him, even when she was eighty years old.