Wicked Release (7 page)

Wandering around the large, family home, Sarah couldn’t help but wonder at the last few days. She had no regrets. She had spent countless ages in the closest place to hell she could imagine. In fact, it was still difficult for her to consider the possibility that some other, nightmarish shoe wasn’t about to drop.

But experiencing what she had with them was worth the risk. Their magic recognized each other. Had merged as if they’d always been one. Their bodies had joined as well. More than once, she thought, blushing as she remembered. Sarah couldn’t regret that either.

Now she knew why she would sometimes find her grandmother staring out the window, a soft smile of remembered love making her look young, making her glow. She’d had a true triad too, before she’d lost them in the old country. Even though she’d come to Salem, searching for a new start with her family, the memories had never gone away.

Now Sarah understood.

Something had altered inside her. A seed of something deeper and more profound was growing. Where there had only been rage, laughter was growing. Where there had only been emptiness, the promise of love was filling it. She’d been afraid she’d lost her soul, but being here, with these people…maybe it was growing back. Or more likely coming out of hiding.

She headed toward the den, where a fire had come to life when alerted to her presence. She stepped closer to study the frames on the mantel. Images of Lorie’s family. His mother and her triad, their smiles brilliant and intimate, telling Sarah without words how happy they were together. In another, their children were all huddled together, showing her their striking similarities. They all had grey and blue eyes, stunning features and a confidence that came from knowing where they belonged. She squinted. Was Lorie wearing spectacles?

They made him look dashing.

She saw an old framed sketch poking out from behind the others. With a hand clutching the blanket, she used her other to reach for the frame. She knelt down beside the fire, studying it in the light.

Despite the flames, her blood ran cold. There were six faces sketched in this image. A family that was nearly as familiar to her as her own. They hadn’t usually traveled in the same circles, she and the daughter and two sons surrounding their parents. But when they did, it was memorable.

Fiona had been kind. She and Thalia were thrown together often due to their families, and Thalia would confide in her that out of that entire clan, the youngest daughter was the gentlest of them.

Jackson was rumored to be the greatest witch of their generation. Important things were expected from him. Unfortunately, much of his greatness was wasted cleaning up the messes and chaos created by his eldest brother.

Robert Abbott.

Robert was spoiled by his parents and society into believing he was special. Though his natural magic was weather-calling, he’d never come to the aid of his community. He’d used it to send storm clouds over houses that held people he’d believed insulted him. He’d starved whole farms out of spite—families who had never done anything to hurt him.

He always got away with it because he was an Abbott.

She still remembered those cold, hard grey eyes watching her beg for mercy. Ignoring her pleas of innocence as he joined his six friends in the privacy of the Winston parlor in weaving her curse.

Grey eyes.

Abbotts. Why hadn’t she put it together? How had she not demanded to know who their family was before coming here with them? Before giving herself to them without reservation?

She almost wished this was the dream.

“Sarah? Sweetheart, what are you doing up?”

With a muttered word she sent the frame flying from her hand. It would have slammed into Lorie’s head if he’d had a slower reaction. “What the hell, Sarah?”

A red haze fringed the edges of her vision. “Abbotts. This was his house originally, wasn’t it? The house Robert came to after he punished me for something I didn’t do. Are you his direct descendent? Did you think bringing me here to take what you wanted would be the icing on the cake? A grand joke we would laugh about over breakfast?”

He swore, running his hands through his tangled curls. “No, Sarah, I give you my oath. According to our family’s records, Robert was disowned for his many crimes and stripped of his powers. He died like a dog in the streets shortly after Jackson disappeared. Remember Jackson Abbott? The man who was murdered trying to break your spell.” He reached out to her, his eyes bright with concern. “We come from Fiona’s line, Sarah. Not Robert’s.”

She didn’t want to hear it. It had all been a lie. Triad. What did that word mean? That someone was given the power to hurt you three times over? “Tell Conway to lower the shield now. Before I do something I regret.”

Lorie’s hands curled into fists. “Damn it, Sarah, don’t do this. Where will you go? My sister has one book, and we’re still looking for the other.”

She laughed, but it was no longer a happy sound. “Are you still pretending you don’t know the Winston family? That the Abbotts don’t know the Gryffin’s? Still trying to make me believe you knew nothing about all those innocent women killed during my last Triune?”

She brushed past him and headed for the door, but he wasn’t ready to end the conversation. “We didn’t lie. There are no Winstons. Hell, maybe they changed their name. Jacob is a Gryffin, but we didn’t know he existed until he’d kidnapped Harrison. Their family lived in exile—”

“A Gryffin kidnapped someone?” She turned to face him, feigning a look of surprise. “And Abbotts are liars who abuse their power? I’m stunned. Tell Conway to drop the shield. Now.”

He made the mistake of reaching for her hand. Everything that had been inside her before she was freed, all the rage and emptiness, combined with this betrayal and her enhanced feeling of power since their joining spilled out from her into him.

Lorie’s expression crumpled and he fell to his knees, his hand still on her arm, her palm ensuring it stayed there. Her heart was breaking. She wanted to die as she watched the wound reappear on his forehead, his lip splitting.

“You’re a healer,” he wheezed. “Sarah this isn’t who you are.”

She took a deep, ragged breath and sent him a burst of healing light, watching the injuries disappear as quickly as they’d come. Her tears blinded her, but she couldn’t give in. “I’m sorry, Lorie. I’m so sorry. I never meant…I was lost for too long. The power to bind a wound can unbind it as well. It was a lesson I was forced to learn. We can’t be together, can’t you see that now? Even if you weren’t Abbotts we can’t have this. Even if we broke the spell, we can’t be sure I won’t instantly grow old and die…or disappear altogether.”

He stood up slowly, the pain on his face so profound it shattered her. “If I’d told you, I’d never have held you in my arms. You wouldn’t have let me near you. How can I apologize for wanting all the facts first so I could protect you? For wanting you to know me before you judged me for a distant relations sins?”

She turned without another word and opened the door. Needing air. Needing a moment to think. Her emotions were overwhelming, the past and the present blurring together. The future impossible.

She held the blanket close, walking across the large front yard and gazing up at the stars. She’d forgotten how peaceful, how beautiful the night could be. Forgotten how much she’d missed the stars.

“Don’t go.”

She didn’t move when she heard Con’s voice. “I can’t, can I? You won’t remove the shield.”

He sighed. “It’s gone. You’re free, Sarah. We will never hold you against your will. After all you’ve been through, we would never…Just—damn it
don’t go
. Not before you hear what I have to say.”

He waited long enough to make sure she wasn’t walking away before he continued. “I spent my life knowing our third was out there. I grew up with Lorie, knew where there were two…I’m sure you know that saying. Then I was waiting for Lorie to get his nose out of his books. Waiting for you at every Triune. For what felt like forever.”

She heard his bare feet crush the grass as he paced behind her, her face damp with her tears as he spoke. “I don’t know if I’ll go to the devil for saying this, but what if you hadn’t been in that book? I know the original religion believes our magic, the essence of what we are returns again and again. But I can’t see that. I can’t hold it in my hands. If you’d lived your life and come back again, would you be Sarah Blackwood? This Sarah Blackwood? Would you be fearless and wild and love so deeply that you could survive what no other could? Would you still have that mole on your hip? Still call me Conway even though I beg you not to?”

His hands skimmed over her shoulders as if he couldn’t help but touch her, before he pulled away. “If Aaron Winston were still alive, I would kill him—sanctioned by the law or not. Lorie had already proven, I don’t know how many times, that he would die for you. And Jackson Abbott was killed trying to free you—for no reason other than it was the right thing to do. Not all Abbotts are like Robert, Sarah. I just want you to think about that.”

He turned and started to walk away and she shook her head, wiping her eyes. “Come back here,
Conway
. And I know you’re eavesdropping, Lorie. I promise I won’t go insane again. At least, not right now.”

She turned and allowed herself to take in these two men who had claimed her. Lorie, with his hands in his jean pockets, bare-chested and beautiful. Con, with his shirt hastily thrown on and his pants unbuttoned.

Her smile felt shaky, but real. “You let the shield down.”

She turned to Lorie. “And you let me go.”

How could she look at them and see her enemy? How, when they gave her everything she’d ever wanted and more—including her freedom? Even if it meant they lost her, they were willing to sacrifice their happiness for the chance that she would stay.

In her life before she was snared in Aaron’s spell, she’d never known men like that. The Magians of her day were, for the most part, narrow-minded sexual deviants. Power-hungry, oblivious, or both. Not these men. They were different. Maybe it was the time they lived in. Perhaps it was just who they were. But they weren’t the kind of Magians a woman walked away from if she could help it.

“No more lies or hiding things from me.” She fiddled with the fringe of her blanket, watching them closely.

Hope sparked to life in Lorie’s eyes. “My oath. From this moment on, you’ll know everything as soon as I do.”

Con nodded, his expression somber and still unsure. “My oath.”

She took a steadying breath. “I don’t know what will happen when we find the other book. I may disappear again. If you can’t get me back, you need to destroy it. I have suffered for too many years. I choose not to continue, if that is the only way I will survive.”

That was harder for them, she knew. But she would never be able to forgive herself if they spent their lives trying to unravel the impossible, or suffering just to see her. They shrugged, and she knew that was as close to an agreement she would get from them.

“This is hard for me too.” She rolled the grass beneath her heel, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m not used to this anymore. Not used to trusting anything I see or feel.” She looked up at them. “I see you and
feel
lucky—but is it an illusion? I know in my heart that neither of you are anything like Robert. Anything like Aaron. I am certain my grandmother would have loved you. But I’m still not sure what tomorrow will bring me. I just…well, I hope you can be patient with me.”

Her grandmother
would
have loved them. Like I do, she thought, but she didn’t have the courage to say it. Not yet. Not until she knew she could give them that love forever. She did the next best thing. She dropped her blanket.

Lorie’s blue eyes widened, and then he was looking around at the neighboring houses. “Here? In the open?”

She gave a watery chuckle and nodded. “You said I’m free. So yes. Here, in the open.”

Con took her in his arms, kissing her as he laid her back in the grass. “Anything you want, babe. Anything.”

“Aw, hell.” Lorie fell to his knees again, tugging her face away from Con’s and taking her mouth in a kiss filled with as much relief as passion. “Look what you do to me, sweet Sarah.”

She bit his chin. “I like what I do to you. To both of you.”

“Let’s see if you like what we do to you,” Con murmured, lowering his head to her left breast.

“Mmm.” Lorie kissed her cheek, her neck and then he was wrapping his tongue around her right nipple, sucking it against the roof of his mouth and scraping her flesh with his teeth.

“
Yes
.”

Con continued to make love to her breasts. Fondling them with his lips and hands as Lorie’s mouth slid down her body, licking her hip, kissing her thighs. He spread her legs, lifting them up over his shoulders with a dark grin before lowering his head between them.

She saw stars twinkling above her. Obscured by the sparkling light of the magic that flowed between them. Her arms stretched high above her, scratched by cool green grass and solid earth.

It was by far the most erotic experience of her life. No chairs or magic reflections required. Just this. Just Lorie’s tongue and fingers filling her sex as she lifted her hips against him, begging for more.

Just Con’s groan as she slid one hand into his unbuttoned jeans and began to stroke while he sucked her nipple.

Just the world tilting on its axis as she moaned and keened and called out their names, rolling on her side with Lorie’s mouth still pressed between her legs so she could reach Con’s thick cock and take it deep into her mouth.

When Lorie undid his jeans, thrusting deep because he couldn’t hold back any longer, Con caressed her hair, murmuring garbled words of endearment until she tasted his release on her tongue.

Right here in the open, where anyone could see, Sarah shared all she was with them.

It was a memory she would never forget.

She was here at last. Lorie had found the book in Salem, just as he said he would. Or, under Salem, to be more precise.