Drawn into Darkness Read online

  She was so incredibly responsive.

  A few words, a few touches, and she’d fallen hard.

  He wasn’t foolish enough to take her wonderful response personally. She’d just needed to come, just needed an outlet for that surplus of passion she kept bottled up inside. And he’d simply been in the right spot at the right time.

  That’s all it was.

  He was convenient.

  Shaking off an irritation that he had no right to feel, he nibbled his way across her flat belly and over the three cute little moles on her hip—claiming every inch of her, if only for this one impossible moment. He licked away the faint traces of perspiration he found between her breasts, savoring the salty taste of her smooth skin. Leaving a trail of wet kisses up her neck, he kissed the underside of her jaw and then lifted himself enough to look into her face.

  Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. The creamy skin of her cheeks was flushed, and the pulse at her throat beat like a wild thing trapped in a cage.

  He’d like to remember her just like this. Loose and sexy and sated. With any luck, the image would be enough to sustain him through the remaining ninety-one years of his servitude, as she went on to live a full, happy life, and he merely existed, as his heart slowly shriveled.

  Reaching across her to the nightstand, he opened the drawer and dug for a condom. The expiration date had long passed, but it wouldn’t matter. His seed was as dead as the rest of him. On his knees, using the lingering play of emotions on Rachel’s face as an aphrodisiac, he pumped a hand up and down his cock, and then rolled the condom on.

  “How many times were you hoping to come?” he asked, leaning over her once more.

  Her eyelids lifted, displaying dark pools of spent passion. A very lazy, satisfied smile curved her lips. “Just keep going until I faint.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll do my best.”

  She traced a delicate finger along one of the thin scabs on his chest, down his abs to the line of hair that began on his lower belly. “You are without question the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen without a shirt on.”

  His blood heated at her compliment, renewing the ache in his balls and sending a squeeze of pressure to the base of his erection. He wanted to be the only man she saw without his shirt on, the only man she coveted, but that wasn’t to be. A little angry, he dug into the silky tresses of her hair, imprisoned her head, and kissed her on the lips, hard.

  At the same time, he ground himself against the apex of her thighs, shuddering at the pleasure that rippled through his body, reveling in the subsequent flare in Rachel’s eyes.

  “Open for me,” he said roughly against her mouth.

  Her knees were already lax, but she spread them wider, lifted her ankles, and wrapped them around his waist, inviting the most intimate connection possible of their bodies.

  Her heat and her wetness called to him, urging him to take her. “I’m going to fill you, sink as deep as you can take me, ride you long and hard,” he whispered, resting his damp forehead against hers. “Is that what you want, Rachel?”

  Her breath came in soft pants.

  “Do it,” she urged.

  He shifted, finding the entrance to her body, the honeyed slickness of her, and slid in—slowly—testing her ability to take him, adjusting to her every mewl and moan. The deeper he sank, the more Rachel wriggled and squirmed and lifted her hips, her excitement escalating, her patience failing.

  “Please.”

  The tight grip of her around him and the slow, synchronized throbbing of their heartbeats were almost more than he could bear. When he was fully seated, buried inside her as deep as he could possibly go, he stilled.

  The words that filled his heart were ones he could never utter, so instead, with his throat constricted, he kissed her tenderly, reverently.

  “You feel unbelievably … perfect,” he said.

  Rachel’s hands clutched at his shoulders, her fingernails digging into his flesh, urging him to move, inciting him to do as he’d promised and ravish her until her legs wobbled.

  He began to move in and out, slowly at first and then, as their bodies aligned and found a rhythm, with more vigor. Sweat beaded on his chest and on his brow, hot blood pooled in his groin, and the thick scent of their mingled arousal filled his nose.

  The torrent of physical sensations stole his sanity, blurred the pain of the past, and grounded him in the here and now. In this moment. In this one afternoon. With Rachel. He could pretend, however briefly, that this was all there was and all there need be.

  “Come for me, Rachel,” he begged hoarsely.

  Her hazel eyes fluttered open, softly focused, almost green against the flush of her cheeks. Every pleasurable impact of his body against hers was reflected in their depths. But her sigh was regretful. “I’m not sure I can.”

  Immediately, he paused.

  But it cost him. Dear God, it cost him. The rush in his head and the pulse of need in his groin were so bloody overwhelming, so damned ferocious, that his abs and biceps shook badly under the strain. His heartbeat railed against his rib cage.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry. I caught a glimpse of my watch, and then I thought about Em and work and …” She sagged. “I lost it.”

  “Emily is still at school. Everything is fine.” He kissed her brow, and then her nose, and finally her lips, trying desperately to ignore the insistent and almost painful ache of his erection inside her. “You need to be here. With me.”

  She returned the kiss, gently, still a tad reticent. “I know.”

  “Let go, love.”

  Mutely, she stared back at him. Big eyes, damp curly hair. So beautiful against the green of the bedcovers.

  “I lead, you follow. That was the price, remember?” He kissed her again, harder this time, bruising the tender flesh of her mouth. “Today, those are my worries, not yours. Forget them. Forget everything but me. Because I intend to make you come again and again … and again.”

  He swiveled his hips, grinding deeper, searching for that magical spot that would enhance her experience. At the same time, he gathered her hands and yanked them above her head, exposing her fully, emphasizing her vulnerability.

  “Do you want me to make you come, Rachel?”

  The answer was there in her eyes, but she spoke anyway. A choked word that was laced with excitement. “Yes.”

  He kissed his way across her throat to her ear and bit on the lobe, enjoying her needy moan. Then he proceeded to tell her in very rough, very explicit words what he intended to do to her and precisely how her body would respond.

  The moan became a whimper, and Rachel thrust up against him, a silent demand for fewer words and more action, which he agreeably met.

  Keeping his own desires severely in check and chasing the worries from her thoughts with the sheer intensity of his sensual attack, he made love to her as he had never made love to a woman in his lengthy existence—with everything he had.

  He stole every kiss from her lips, seized every moan. He demanded, insisted, seduced. He rammed into her, teasing her relentlessly with the intimate slap of their bodies, ensuring the steady, heady mix of friction and pressure did precisely what he said they would do. Tracking her every shiver, her every quake, her every tensed muscle, he coaxed her to the pinnacle.

  Then he wrapped his arms tightly around her, pressed his mouth to hers, and took her over the edge.

  10

  It was unbearably hard to let her go.

  Against his better judgment, he sought lingering last touches and soft sweet kisses, trying to drag out the experience as long as he could. But he was very careful not to speak of the future, very careful not to allude to a repeat encounter.

  And Rachel made no attempt to prompt such a discussion.

  She smiled shyly, kissed him firmly on the mouth, and then, rumpled and disheveled and still swollen from his kisses, left the apartment.

  Lachlan closed the door and sank to the tiles, dressed only
in a pair of knee-length gray sweat shorts. His heart ached, but this was just the beginning of the torture, and he knew it. Even if he managed to survive his next encounter with Drusus, he’d have to endure ninety-one years of remembering today.

  Remembering Rachel.

  He glanced down at his chest, at the ever-thinning wounds from last night, the grim reminders of his unequivocal defeat. Neither the sword nor his current repertoire of magic had been enough to triumph over the bastard, but something Drusus had mentioned made him think winning was still possible.

  The Book of Gnills.

  He pushed himself to his feet and returned to his bedroom, a bedroom redolent with the scent of spent sex and … Rachel. Giving in to temptation, he bent to the pillows and inhaled deeply, pulling her earthy aroma into his lungs and trapping it there for a long moment.

  Then he slowly released the breath, entered the bathroom, and turned the shower on full blast.

  With cool water.

  An hour later, he parked the Audi in Stefan’s long, dusty driveway and unfolded himself from the car. The smithy behind the house glowed with the incandescent heat of an active forge, but there was no sign of Stefan in the small wooden building, and Lachlan, wary, turned to study the front door of the mage’s house. Not once in the seven months he’d known him had he been invited inside Stefan’s home.

  Home being a very loose word, of course.

  It was actually the modern-day equivalent of the Romany caravan—a large brown and white fifth-wheel with slide-outs. The cedar strip skirt erected to hide the wheels and the well-tended flower garden did little to banish the air of impermanence.

  Lachlan wended the stone path between mounds of pink and white flowers, climbed the steps, and rapped on the thin metal door. How did anyone live in such cramped quarters day in and day out?

  A short black-haired woman with riveting dark brown eyes opened the door. Stefan’s wife, Dika. He’d met her once or twice before. She gave him a rueful smile, then stood back to let him enter.

  “He’s in the back,” she said, gesturing to the far end of the trailer, where a purple velvet curtain divided the room.

  The trailer was amazingly luxurious—maple cabinets throughout, leather furniture in the living room, and stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. A big pot of spaghetti sauce bubbled on the stove, filling the trailer with a spicy tomato aroma.

  “Am I interrupting?” he asked Dika.

  “No, he’s expecting you.”

  He traversed the length of the trailer and pulled back the curtain to view Stefan’s private domain. As he stepped over the threshold, however, the heavy material slid out of a suddenly limp hand.

  Gone were the smooth glass windows, the beige carpet, the cream-colored walls. In their place stood dank stone walls lit by masses of dripping candles, heavy oak tables covered in dusty, leather-bound tomes, and a plethora of small earthenware jugs labeled with curious names, such as beetle wings and spiderwebs. The thick smell of mildew and fatty tallow wax hung in the air with a medieval authenticity he remembered all too well.

  But the décor didn’t startle him as much as the size of the room. A fifteen-foot square could not possibly fit inside the forty-by-ten-foot dimensions of the trailer.

  Stefan lifted his gaze from the book he was reading and arched a brow at Lachlan’s black jeans and pale gray oxford shirt. “You’ve given up the priest’s robes.”

  Lachlan shrugged. “They weren’t helping.”

  “Still, haven’t you worn them since your bro—?”

  “I’m no’ here to discuss the past. You told me there was no way to defeat a lure demon.”

  Stefan’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

  “Then why did Death assure me I could do so?”

  The mage closed his book, sending a curl of dust into the air. “Did she? How interesting.”

  Lachlan was tired of being played, first by Death and her mysterious words, and now by Stefan and his carefully neutral response. He closed the gap in one easy stride and snatched hold of the man’s tan shirt. Yanking him off the stool, he lifted the swordsmith until his toes barely touched the wood-planked floor.

  “Do no’ test the sharpness of my mood, mage. I need answers and I need them now.”

  Stefan did not struggle for release. Nor did he invoke any of the many protection spells he was capable of. “What makes you think I know what she was referring to?”

  “Because you’re keeping secrets.”

  “What secrets?”

  Lachlan lifted him a bit farther and shook him slightly, enjoying the wince that flickered over the other man’s face. “The Book of Gnills, for one. According to Drusus, it contains powerful spells that could aid me, yet you’ve shared nothing of that particular tome.”

  Stefan blinked through the inky locks that now hung over his eyes. “I see.”

  “Well, I don’t, and I’m weary of being trifled with.”

  He gave a slow nod. “Let me down, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  For several angry heartbeats, Lachlan’s fingers remained tight. But curiosity finally won him over, and he released him.

  “Leave nothing out.”

  The mage tucked his wrinkled shirt back into his overalls. Then he grabbed a stool, positioned it against the south wall, and reached for a shelf of large jugs above his head. From behind the jugs he drew two books, both remarkably unnoteworthy, both bound in simple black leather with no exterior markings. As he jumped down, a waft of damp decay assailed Lachlan’s nose.

  “The Book of Gnills,” Stefan said, sighing as he dropped the larger of the two volumes upon the tabletop with a dull thunk. “And the Book of T’Farc.”

  The second book made no sound when he dropped it. Not even a whisper.

  Lachlan stared, suddenly uneasy. “What are they?”

  “The Book of Gnills is a compendium of shade magic, gathered and recorded by my ancestors in the time before we were Roma, during an age when the deities walked more freely on the middle plane.”

  At the question in Lachlan’s eyes, he enlarged. “The magic you currently use is entity magic—magic that comes from within, magic that is stoked by the wielder’s own strength, passion, and intelligence. Shade magic is something else. It draws from the environment, from the very fabric of the plane itself.”

  “And this other book? The Book of T’Farc?”

  “Void magic. Magic that draws upon the concentrated power of the human soul, draining all those within reach, killing them instantly. God has outlawed the use of void magic, and has sworn vengeance on anyone who uses it.”

  “Do no’ God and Satan draw upon the power of the human soul? Is that no’ the source of their power?”

  “Yes, but the souls they draw on are the souls of the dead. Even so, with the deific skills they possess, they never exhaust a soul completely. Casual wielders of void magic unfortunately lack the skill to prevent that tragedy.”

  Lachlan grimaced. Of course. Drusus, who would feel nothing but glee at the notion of killing to strengthen himself, had the ability to draw on the power of a soul, while a man of good conscience was doomed to defeat because he could not do the same.

  “What happens when you use shade magic?”

  With a wave of his hand, Stefan conjured two steaming mugs of coffee and handed one to Lachlan.

  “No,” he said with a smile, “that wasn’t shade magic. But I could have used shade magic to do the same thing if I’d been willing to sacrifice something else. All magic is basically a trade, an exchange of one form of power for another. Had I used shade magic instead of my own root energy, I’d have had to give up something in our physical environment. Stones from the wall, or a book, maybe.”

  Lachlan studied the dark brown liquid in his cup, thinking. “Not such a terrible repercussion.”

  “Except that extinguishing a physical object using shade magic leaves a hole in the plane, an area of instability, the size of which depends on the intensity of the spell that was cast. St
range things begin to occur around those holes, things we can’t control. Random disappearances. Freakish weather. There’s even been tales of creatures coming through from the other side.”

  “Havoc demons?”

  “Worse.”

  Havoc demons, the unscrupulous accident-inducers that occasionally broke through the barrier to the middle plane, were bad enough. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what worse might entail. “Are shade spells stronger than entity spells?”

  “Yes, and void spells are stronger than shade. The power used to generate them is deeper, more focused.”

  Taking a sip of his coffee, Lachlan digested that. “You lied when you told me you knew of nothing that could destroy a lure demon.”

  “I didn’t lie. I haven’t read either of these books.”

  The rumors said otherwise. “Ballocks. Your reputation among the Roma is as questionable as these books. You’ve read them.”

  Stefan arched a brow. “You’re aware of the gossip?”

  “I am.”

  “Then why agree to work with me? If the stories are true, you risk your very existence by putting any faith in my skills.”

  “Because you’re also the best.”

  Stefan smiled. “And you’re arrogant enough to believe vigilance can prevent your demise.”

  Lachlan said nothing.

  The mage shook his head. “Accept the truth or do not: I’ve never read either tome. The Romany Council outlawed them, insisting the consequences far outweigh the rewards. I agree with their assessment.”

  His next sentence hung in the air, unspoken: Lachlan should turn his back on the spell books. Yet how could he? He kept seeing the golden glow of the reliquary tucked inside the lure demon’s jacket, kept seeing Emily laughingly licking ice cream from her cone, and his insides burned.

  “Surely there’s a way to work around the problems.”

  The mage’s face darkened. “No, there’s not.”

  “Damn it, Stefan, how can you be so certain?”

  “Because my father succumbed to curiosity and read both grimoires cover to cover. After seven years of study, did he ever attempt even the smallest of spells? No. In the end, he hid the blasted things away. My father died, like many Romany mages before him, at the hands of a vicious demon … using only entity magic in his defense.”