For Whom the Spell Tolls (15 page)

“What do you mean he glamoured you and you nearly succumbed?”

I took another deep breath, fully aware of how bad my words sounded. “I mean, Bram tried to assert his will on me to prove whether or not I was strong enough to resist him. He claims the vampires in the Netherworld Guard are older than three hundred, and will use their powers of persuasion to throw us, and if we aren’t prepared to resist them, we’ll lose.”

Knight glared at me for a few seconds, his cheeks and the tops of his ears flushing. “So what you’re trying to tell me is that you weren’t strong enough to resist him, meaning you had sex with Bram?” His eyes began to glow as he dropped his arms from his chest and cracked his knuckles.

“No, that’s not what I’m trying to tell you,” I protested, throwing my hands on my hips as I grew angry that this whole situation wasn’t exactly going as I planned.

“Then get to the point and get there quickly.”

“Bram had a portrait painted of me,” I said with steely reserve, not appreciating the look of condemnation in Knight’s eyes. “He glamoured me into using my magic to dress myself in the same fashion as the portrait. Because of his glamour, I was forced to use my magic to change into this,” I finished, with a quick glance at myself.

“Then he didn’t try to use his powers and force you into his bed?”

I shook my head, before I nodded. “Sort of. He glamoured me into believing I wanted to be with him, but at the same time, he told me to fight his power. So, to make a very long story short: yes, he glamoured me, and yes, I was eventually able to fight his power. But no, I didn’t have sex with him. End of story.”

“Did he kiss you?” Knight continued, his eyes now fully white.

I felt my cheeks coloring. “Yes.”

He took a step closer to me. “Did he touch you?”

I swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Where?”

I felt my eyes widening the closer he came. “He touched my breast.”

Knight didn’t say anything but stood merely an inch or so away from me, just staring down at me as I stared back up at him. To avoid letting him think that I’d brought any of this on myself, I decided to further explain. “When I found out what he’d done, I punched him,” I whispered, my heart racing as I wondered if he believed me. Not only that, but the way he was staring at me and his close proximity created butterflies in my stomach.

Knight reached forward and ran the backs of his fingers down my cheek. “If anyone ever touches you again without your permission, he will answer to me.” He paused a second or two. “And as for Bram, he and I have unfinished business.”

“He was testing me, Knight,” I started in Bram’s defense. “He was trying to prove that if I wasn’t strong enough to defend myself against him, I shouldn’t be fighting the Netherworld Guard. It was just his way of trying to dissuade me.”

“There are other ways he could have tested you,” Knight said. When he shook his head, I realized he made a good point. “He took advantage of you when you weren’t in the right frame of mind to defend yourself. It’s a wonder the bastard didn’t take full advantage of the situation.”

“At any rate,” I started, choosing to change the subject, “I’m sure there are way more important subjects for us to discuss. First off, what is the plan for tomorrow?”

Knight shrugged. “We’ve put the invasion off until ten p.m. tomorrow night because Fagan still needs a little more time with the draft, and we wanted to appease our nocturnal faction.”

I figured he meant the vampires. While vampires could be out and about at any time of day or night in the Netherworld, such was not the case here. And since we still had to travel from here to there, it made sense to do so under the cover of night.

“Okay, I have information on where we should enter the Netherworld, and Bram gave me this,” I started, fishing for the timepiece inside my pocket. I handed the pocket watch to Knight and watched him study it quizzically. “It’s programmed to locate my father’s whereabouts at any given second.”

Knight’s eyebrows rose as he shook his head and brought his gaze to mine. “Bram must really want to see your father taken out.”

I nodded as I wondered just why that was.

EIGHT

The sunlight filtered through the blinds, hitting me squarely in the face. I shielded my eyes, opening them just a sliver as my pupils adjusted to the light. Yawning, I sat up and stretched, immediately feeling Knight’s big arms encircling my waist as he pulled me into him and planted a chaste kiss on the back of my neck. I glanced down, smiling, and covered his hands with my own, realizing I was still naked.

“Maybe you and I aren’t going to make it as a couple,” he grumbled.

I frowned. “And why is that?”

He smiled, the grin lighting up his entire face, and reflecting in his piercing blue eyes. “Because you’re a morning person and I, most definitely, am not.”

“Silly man,” I scolded without making any motion to move. I just sat in the bed of our hotel room and admired him. I could only hope Christina wasn’t a morning person either because I wanted a little one-on-one time with my Loki.

He leaned up on one elbow while I continued to gaze at him. The blankets fell all the way down to his midsection, baring half of his incredible body. I traced the line of a deltoid, down to his bicep and further down his forearm, relishing the feel of his wiry arm hair and the way it tickled my fingers. Even though Knight’s unparalleled beauty was a diversion from my overwrought mind, that’s all it was—a diversion. I sighed, dropping my hand as I tried to think of happier times, but my all-consuming thoughts centered entirely on our impending future.

“You’re nervous,” Knight said softly.

I nodded; there was no reason to try and hide my feelings. Today could possibly be the last day of
everything
as I knew it. Tonight we would invade the Netherworld, and who knew what that meant? Tonight I could lose my life, or Knight could lose his, or my father could lose his. Maybe all three of us would pay the ultimate price, or maybe none of us would. Really, only fate dictated whether we rolled an ace or a deuce. Anyway I looked at it, though, after tonight, nothing would be the same again. And those words weren’t easy to think in any way, shape or form.

“Dulcie, we don’t have to go through with this,” Knight started. He reached over and tilted my chin up until we were eye to eye. “We can remain in hiding while we continue planning. We don’t have to act now if you don’t feel like we’re ready.”

I shook my head, refusing to comprehend his words for even one second. “No, we have to do this and we have to do it now. You know it as well as I do.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything for a few moments, and instead, just gazed at me. He secured a stray piece of my hair behind my ear and picked up my hand, intertwining my fingers in his. “I just hate to see you like this.”

I smiled and tried to appear more hopeful, attempting to camouflage my insides, which were roiling with fear, anger and worry. “The situation is what it is.”

“I want you to know something,” he started, clearing his throat when it sounded like his morning voice snuck in. “You are my number one priority; and no matter what happens, your safety is the most important thing to me.”

I adamantly shook my head. “You can’t think that way.”

“I can’t help it,” he started, but I brought my fingers to his lips to silence him.

“I’m not the most important person in this and you have to convince yourself of that. The most important thing is our freedom as well as the freedom of
all
Netherworld creatures. They are the reason we’re all willing to put our lives on the line.” I took a breath, holding his gaze. “I’m a soldier just like the rest of us; and if that means risking my life, I’m doing it.”

Knight dropped his eyes to the bed and spanned his fingers across the linens, his mood suddenly more somber. But only seconds later, he eyed me again and the former anxiety and concern that was present merely moments ago totally vanished. “You’re right. We need to focus on the positive,” he said resolutely. “We need to center all of our energy on our plan of attack.” He sighed deeply and then nodded. “Just like you said, we’re soldiers, first and foremost.”

I nodded as I smiled at him, loving him with every fiber of my being. He stood up, gloriously naked; but before I could bask in his male allure, he pulled on his boxer shorts, turning away from me. He approached the giant windows, opening the blinds and stared at the still river. My attention immediately settled on the scratches covering his back. A blush filled my cheeks when I remembered making love to him the night before. At first, in a mutually ravenous impulse, we tore each other’s clothes off. He’d pressed my body against the wall and taken me right there. The scratches on his back reminded me of how I’d allowed my inner wild child to surface. After our first foray of animalistic, sexual instinct, we took a half-hour breather. Then, after crawling on top of him, our love making became much quieter and more serenely intense.

“What’s on that beautiful mind of yours?” Knight asked, turning to face me. He stretched his arms above his head and bent over before pushing his palms onto the floor to stretch his hamstrings.

I headed for the bathtub that sat in the middle of the room, and turned on the faucet. Taking a seat on the lip of the tub, I relished the feel of the water running over my toes. I glanced up at him and purposely allowed my eyes to travel down his exquisite form before answering. “Our evening last night flashed in my mind once I saw the scratches all over your back,” I said with a smile. “Sorry I got so rough, by the way.”

Knight chuckled and shook his head, amused. “Hmm, if I remember correctly, you were like a wild animal.”

“Moi?” I asked with mock offense, pointing to myself, as if to say we couldn’t possibly be talking about the same person.

Taking the few steps that separated us, he smiled before coming up behind me. His stomach felt warm when he brushed up against my back and I leaned closer to him, shutting my eyes and luxuriating in his warm skin on my back and the hot bathwater, which was now up to my ankles.

“Yes, you,” he breathed into my ear. He rested his lips against my neck and cupped my right breast.

“You were the one who was the animal,” I laughed. “I mean, aren’t you the one with the ‘inner beast’?” My eyes opened of their own accord when he gently squeezed my nipple between his fingers.

“Hmm, you don’t have to remind me; but weren’t you the one begging for it ‘deeper and harder’?”

“I guess you have a point,” I said, laughing. My laugh died instantly when his fingers descended from my breast to the sensitive area between my legs. He rubbed my nub in tiny circles as I sighed and leaned against him, opening my legs to grant him more access.

“That’s right,” he whispered into my ear. When his finger entered me, I bucked in response.

Suddenly, a buzzing sound interrupted our sex-capade. It sounded as if it was coming from the top of the dresser, which occupied the corner of the room. With a quick glance, I noticed Knight’s cell phone flashing like it was jealous I was getting all of his attention. Knight sighed. The call must have been important, though, because he answered it.

“Sam,” he said into the receiver, turning to face me again.

I could hear her voice on the other line, but Knight was too far away for me to make sense of her words. Instead, I just watched him as he continued to stand there quietly. He didn’t say much, just listened to her, nodding here and there, although his eyes never left me.

Open your legs
, he mouthed. I reached around to turn the water off, but only after realizing it was already dangerously close to overflowing. Remembering his request, I looked at him again and watched as he arched his eyebrows as if to say,
Why aren’t you doing what I told you?
I smiled and twirled my hair around my finger as I pretended to feel unhurried or undecided as to whether I should obey him.

He frowned and was about to mouth something else when his attention was redirected to his phone conversation. “Sure, that sounds good,” he said to Sam as I made his concentration a bit more difficult by parting my legs, and spreading them wide.

I watched his eyes narrow as he focused on the soft flesh between my legs. He approached me and leaned over, never pulling his gaze from mine as he ran his fingers over me. I closed my eyes and threw my head back, arching against his hand as he pushed two fingers into me.

“Yep,” he said into the phone. “Good, I’m glad to hear Fagan’s got it under control.”

He was quiet for a few more seconds so I opened my eyes, only to find him staring at me. He pushed his fingers deeper inside me and I gasped while he smiled, obviously pleased at the results of his technique.

“Interesting,” he said. “Yeah, that sounds fine. Okay. I’ll see you in about forty minutes.”

Hanging up the phone, he placed it carelessly on the floor and stood up. Then he pulled his boxer shorts down, revealing his erection.

“Sam is coming in forty minutes?” I asked, watching as he grabbed both of my ankles and positioned me so my butt was resting on the edge of the tub. He released my ankles and pushed against the insides of my thighs, spreading my legs apart. Then, holding me close, he rubbed his swollen head against my opening.