Tess had never seen a man with a square jaw, though she had heard the term. This man’s was hard and covered in a shadow of dark whiskers. She wanted to lick it with every fiber of her being.
“Bradley. Hello there, Miss Knight. I’m Nathaniel Tremont. I’m an agent with the FBI and I’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”
Tess turned and glared at the wolf, who was grinning like a he had just played a grand joke on her and had won. For now, she thought, but paybacks were a bitch. He had been a diversion, she realized then. Someone to keep her there until this man who held her had arrived. Well, she was having none of it.
“Am I under arrest? Have I done something to warrant you keeping here against my will, agent? Because if you are, then you can try and cuff me again if you think you can.” She pulled away from him and felt the loss of his touch immediately. She then got angry with herself about feelings like that for a man who she did not know.
“No, ma’am. You’re free to go. Like I said, I have a few questions I’d like to ask you, that’s all. We can either do it here or down at the FBI office. Matters little to me, just whatever you’re comfortable with,” the agent said to her in an “I won’t hurt a fly” voice.
She had a feeling her actual comfort mattered little in the large scheme of things. And he was right, she could do it here or downtown, but he would get his answers. She could see that in his eyes.
Tess knew that this man had fed her. For whatever reason, he had saved her life. She could feel the connection to him the moment she had touched him. She blushed slightly when she thought of her hand grabbing him like she had. His cock had been hard before she had touched it so she knew that she had not been the cause of how firm it had been under her fingers, but goodness, he was large and thick.
She looked up at him when he chuckled. She wondered if he could read her mind and then decided that she would test her theory. She tried to think of something really sexual and thought about her kneeling before him and unbuckling his belt, her fingers moving along the strip of leather, then unhooking the snap on his pants. Then she thought about the slow descent of his zipper and her hand reaching into his pants and freeing his cock from his briefs. Closing her eyes she thought about her tongue moving along the crest of him, the curved head hot with blood.
Then she ran her tongue down the length of him, following the large vein from the top to the nest of curls at the base. Before she could go further in her thoughts, she opened her eyes when he had her pressed against the wall.
“You’re playing with fire, little girl. Be careful you don’t get scorched.” He was panting and then she realized she was too. Her little experiment had gotten out of hand. But there was no reason for him to hold her like he was.
“Let me go.”
“Not yet. You owe me.” His mouth crushed over hers.
~~~
Nathaniel had never meant to claim her, much less kiss her. But her teasing him with her thoughts had gone too far. He was already hard with wanting her and her mental video of them sent him over the top. He did not know how she did it, but she had fed him the same dream he had had about her just before sunrise. The only difference was they were in his chamber and not in a hospital room.
When she opened her mouth under his assault he groaned and slid his tongue along hers, tangling and mating with it. Her mouth was hot; her flavor was spicy and just what he thought she would taste like. He ground his cock hard against her soft folds and nearly snarled at her when she pulled her mouth from his. He moaned again when she nipped at his neck and chin, sending shivers of pleasure through his oversensitive body. Christ, he thought. He wanted her now.
“You two might want to wait until you’re alone to finish this. I believe there are others coming in who might not enjoy watching the two of you fucking against the wall. But as I have said before, I could be wrong.”
Nathaniel felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over his head. He jumped back from Tess quickly and then reached to steady her when she stumbled slightly. Her bared teeth and accompanying growl had him snapping his hand back quickly.
“I’m leaving and you will stay the fuck away from me.” He felt the room fill with
something, a tightening, then she was gone.
Nathaniel looked at the wolf. What the hell just happened? he wondered, and reached out to the wall to steady himself. Christ, but she was…power.
“You all right? I gotta tell you, vamp, I’ve never seen anything like it. You two glowed; I mean a huge fucking glow. I tried to look away, but it was like a train wreck. I just couldn’t seem to pull my eyes off it. She is one nimble woman.”
Nathaniel growled at the alpha and moved to hit him when he felt something coming toward the room.
The door opened and several beings walked into the room. Nathaniel would have to ask her to be sure of how Tess had disappeared so quickly, but one thing was certain, everyone was pissed that she was gone.
Aaron and four women entered and Nathaniel knew immediately why Aaron had told him
that he was the stronger of the two of them. The powerbase that he kept company with was like nothing Nathaniel had ever experienced before. Walking in behind them, two men came in. The room seemed to expand under the weight of their combined magic. He knew that he was looking at pure magic, not the black he normally dealt with in his line of work.
“Where is she? I want to know where she’s gone again. Damn it, Aaron, you said she would be here. Now where is she?” one of the women asked the master.
“If you mean Tess, then she left not ten seconds ago. She said that she was being
hunted…well, she said that people where looking for her and she didn’t want them to find her.
Then they kissed and she left.”
Nathaniel glared at the wolf and decided if he ever had the opportunity, he was going to drain the bastard. He did not seem to have a discreet bone in his body, Nathaniel thought as he looked over at Aaron. Great, he thought, now the master was grinning. As soon as he possibly could, Nathaniel was going back to Virginia where he felt safe and sane.
“Did either of you gentlemen see her mark? I’m to understand that it is unusual. I have a book here of other sigils that I’ve been collecting and wondered if you could look these over and let me know if you remember what it may have looked like?” a very nice-looking man said as he moved toward Nathaniel. The book looked ancient.
“Dad, what if it’s her? What if she’s come back after all this time?” the woman asked of the man who spoke. Nathaniel wondered why they cared about his mate. Then he shook himself mentally. She was not his mate, damn it.
“Who are you people and what does this mark have to do with Tess?”
“I’m sorry, Nathaniel Tremont, this is my mate and love, Sara. This is James and Savannah, and Phillip and Elizabeth. James and Savannah are Mel’s parents. And Phillip and Elizabeth are Sara’s grandparents. Mel is the current Queen of Magic.”
These people knew something and he was willing to bet that they were also the ones Tess was running from. It was time to either cut his losses and leave before it was too late or stay and figure her out. His mind told him to get out, but his body was telling him to stay, that he would never get this chance again.
“Before I look in this book and tell you what I saw, maybe someone should tell me why it’s important to you all. Why you’re upset Tess left before you got to talk to her, and why she is running from you?”
“Nathaniel is right. He has a right to know. She is his mate, after all. Let’s all adjourn to our house where we will be more comfortable. And we’ll tell him everything we know. You will ride back with Sara and me. I’m sure you have questions,” the master said.
Nathaniel had spent the daylight hours in the mansion. It was a lovely house full of antiques.
There was also a beautiful blending of the old with the new. He had not had a chance to meet Aaron’s family; it had been late when he had arrived and he had gone straight to the room Duncan had led him too. Now that he had met Sara he could see parts of her throughout the house and in the lair where he had slept.
An hour later they were sitting in the living room of the mansion. Duncan was walking
around with a large tray of different types of food for the rest of the group while Nathaniel and Aaron waited until everyone settled.
Nathaniel was introduced to the alpha’s mate, Alastriona, and to Bradley’s two cubs, Charlie and Charlotte. When the children went off to play with Aaron’s two children, the adults settled down to talk.
“Fifteen years ago, Sherman, my mate, tried to have me put to fade. Our kind can’t die as we are true immortals, but we can fade from this realm into the next. I was nearly to term with our child, but she was killed in the explosion—not having her first breath, she was not yet like me, a true immortal. Sherman wanted to take over the realm and run it as he wanted and I was…I was in his way. Sara was the head of my Brianal Guard then and she and her guard were present at the time, having come to arrest him. She was able to get me out and put in a safe place. The other men, my Brianal Guards who followed Sara, were killed.” Mel started the tale. “It took me years to recuperate from the injuries and the miscarriage. Then nearly three years passed before I was able to contact Sara again, and another year before I could tell my family where I was. Because I feared, without my full strength to fight him, he would succeed.”
“If you can’t die then what purpose did it serve to only put you into fade? What sort of magic did he use to overpower you? Just using black magic wouldn’t do the amount of damage you’re talking about. And wouldn’t you have still been queen?” Nathaniel asked her.
“It was black magic and I’ve never been able to figure out who his trainer was. As for me being queen, that would be yes and no. Sherman would have been able to run the realm in my stead as my mate. But without my magic he would never be able to use his own. I am magic, black or white. This would have drained the realm, causing more damage than you can fathom.
See, Nathaniel, black magic isn’t a renewable source. It only takes from the things around it and never returns anything back. White magic, or pure magic, is clean and if used correctly can be used for other things. For example, the fairies of the forest wake the buds on the flowers with a kiss each morning. And every morning with the kiss, color is painted into the petals, dew is laid heavily on the blooms for their first drinks, and the sun nurtures them to open fully. When the flower dies, its roots continue to feed the soil, the blossoms and the petals fertilize the ground, and the color goes into the root systems for the trees to use in the fall. Understand?”
“Okay, so you have perpetual motion in magic. I understand, but not what this has to do with Tess. You said she was coming back, back from where?”
“Two weeks before Mel was hurt Tess came to me and told me that Sherman was going to
harm Mel and their babe. Tess had details, information she said she got from his mind. As a Brianal Tess couldn’t read Sherman’s mind. But she had, she did. She also told me that he had plans to take over the realm and destroy the magic. None of us believed her. Well, that’s not really true; we chose not to believe her. Tess was denounced as a member of the Brianal Guard and her immortality was revoked and she was reduced to only a fae because her actions were seen as crimes against the queen,” Sara said.
“So, she was right. Everything she told you came to head and it happened just like she said.
But that’s not all, is it? Something else happened and now you are looking for her. What was it?
Why are you so hot to speak to her?”
“Her family was a part of my guard. Her great-grandfather, grandfather, and father, they were all there with me. They were killed too. Sherman called out their names one at a time and took their immortality as he held them down with his magic. When the bomb when off, and because they were unable to leave, they died.”
Christ, Nathaniel thought, her entire family gone because no one would listen to her, believe in her. But that still did not explain why they wanted to talk to her, seemed to need to talk to her.
Unless…
“You don’t know if this Tess is the one you’re looking for, do you? That’s what the book is for, so you can see if the woman you’re chasing is the one you betrayed.”
Nathaniel heard the hiss of anger from Aaron and he felt the anger surge through the room, but he was not here to make friends. He was here to try and understand the woman who went to the bank to borrow enough money to get transportation and ended up saving the bank untold amounts of money, both in money stolen and lawsuits, in the aftermath of all the probable deaths. “She knows you’re chasing her; she even said that she wants nothing to do with you. So, what is it you want with her?”
“To ask her to forgive me, to forgive us. And to reinstate her to whatever level she wants.
Give her whatever she wants,” Mel said to him. He could hear the sincerity in her voice.
Nathaniel did not think Tess would want anything from these people, but he really did not know her that well. He did know that she was something of an enigma, not only to him, but to these people as well.
He walked over, picked up the book, and sat down with it. The first few pages were
drawings of detailed sigils that were marked as Brianal. Each drawing bore the name of the person who wore it and other names had been added in a different hand. Then there was the significance of the design. Each person brought to the next design their own bit of it. Sara bore the mark of a Brianal, but hers differed in that she also carried the mark of the Brianal Guard.
He turned two more pages and saw a part of the mark Tess carried. The next page carried a bit more and the ninth page carried the last. He showed his findings to Phillip and knew that even they did not know what she carried, nor why.
“This mark here, the Brianal Guard, it has a black mark through the middle of it. The last mark is not black, but in all sorts of colors. It has a gold band around it at the bottom; it seems to go completely around her bicep.”