Chapter Four

 

The police came and went.

The fact that the police commissioner’s own home had been broken into meant the case would be given highest priority. The fact that nothing had been removed from the police commissioner’s home meant the case would be downgraded to lowest of high priority in a city where there are over fifty thousand property crimes a year.

Disconcertingly—for John and the boys and girls in blue—no one showed up on the footage of our surveillance cameras. Our security system showed no signs of having been disarmed, and yet had not been triggered by the intruders.

After the uniformed officers had reluctantly, apologetically retreated, John poured us each a glass of wine, and we settled on the sectional sofa in the sunken living room.

It was nearly midnight by then. We toasted a little wearily.

“¡Arriba.” John touched the rim of his glass to mine.

“Abajo.”

“Al centro.” We clicked the bowls.

“Adentro.” We drank. I finished, “Abracadabra.”

John expelled an amused breath, leaned forward, and kissed me. I kissed him back. Our mouths lingered, but then he drew back—reluctantly, at least—and said, “Do you have an explanation for what happened here tonight?”

“I think you called it. I think someone was looking for information that could be used against us.”

“That’s not what I mean, though.”

I made a face. “I know. But you’re not going to like hearing what I believe happened.”

“Hearing things I don’t like is part of my job description.”

I sighed, let my head fall back on his outstretched arm. “I think magic was used to break in here tonight. I think that’s why no one showed up on the surveillance tapes. I think that’s why the alarm wasn’t triggered.”

“Magic.” His tone was flat.

“You asked. That’s what I believe.”

He groaned softly, tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I really have a hard time believing this stuff.”

“I know.”

“Why would magical beings have to resort to blackmail? Why couldn’t they just force the rest of us to do their bidding? If there are witches, why don’t they run the world?”

“They run part of the world.”

I felt his stare and shrugged. “That’s the truth. There are witches in positions of power. Just like there are mortals in positions of power. We’re not omnipotent. We’re not…we’re mortal too, remember?”

“That’s what you’ve said.”

“It’s the truth. We have certain advantages—”

“What are your disadvantages?” he cut in.

I hesitated. “For one thing, there are a lot fewer of us than you. We’re not prolific. Few witches bear more than one child. Most can’t conceive at all. In the numbers game, we’re slowly but surely playing a losing hand.”

He was silent.

I said, “When it comes to our…powers, they’re more like candlelight than atomic blasts. That doesn’t mean one couldn’t achieve the same effect as punching in a doomsday code, but it would take a lot more than magic to achieve that end.”

He said dryly, “I’m happy to hear it.”

I closed my eyes. “This conversation makes me sad.”

I could feel his eyes on my face. He said gently, “Why’s that?”

“Because I know you’re thinking of all the ways I’m not like you, all the ways that I’m not human.”

John said after a moment, “But you are human. I know that. As for not being like me, that’s a good thing. I wouldn’t be in love with anyone like me. It still amazes me that you are.”

I opened my eyes. “I love you more than anything in this world.”

His gaze was grave and maybe just a little perplexed. “I know. Sometimes I think it must have been you who was under a love spell.”

I laughed. “No. Maman said not, and she would know.”

“Then I guess you just have truly terrible taste in men, ma belle.”

I wrinkled my nose at the feminine noun. “You do know belle is for women.”

“I guess. It means beautiful, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think it’s the right word.”

I snorted.

John drained his glass, set it on the table, and rose. He reached a hand down to me. “Come to bed, my wicked witch, and I’ll show you how much I love you.”

I took his hand and let him draw me to my feet.

 

 

The bedside lamp cast its own sweet, shadowy spell of satiny light and gentle shadows. That mellow radiance caught the glint of John’s eyes and teeth and hair, the gleam of taut, polished skin and hard muscles. The sheets tangled around us, a different kind of handfasting, binding us together.

Till death do us part.

John’s cock rubbed up against my own, sending an electric tingle shooting from the base of my spine to the base of my skull. “Now that’s magic,” John’s voice was deep and husky.

I sighed, “C’est beau, mon amour”—he had this thing about la langue française pillow talk—as I smoothed my hands up and down his wide, muscular back. He was so beautiful. A lean, mean killing machine.

My hands froze. Where had that terrible thought come from?

“Nice,” John murmured. His mouth brushed mine, once, twice, thrice… Sweet, coaxing, cherishing kisses, speaking to me in our own language. “Everything about you is so nice.”

Who would think nice could be such a compliment? Such a little, loving word? But that was how John paid out his compliments, these small, scattered gems. Like a dusty prospector paying for his provisions, his necessities, in tiny uncut diamonds.

His hand pushed between my thighs to caress my balls, and I groaned, instinctively shoving into his hold.

Our mouths met again in a kiss that soon grew wild, impatient. What was it when you were getting everything you craved, but it still wasn’t enough, you still wanted more? John broke away to trail hot, hungry kisses down my throat, my skin burning everywhere that fiery butterfly lit.

“How is it possible to love someone this much?” he whispered, and he sounded truly bewildered.

“Comment remets-tu en question l’amour?” That was not pillow talk; that was genuine puzzlement. How do you question love? Why would you question love? “Is it not like questioning oxygen?”

“More like questioning fire,” he muttered.

His hand found and stroked my cock—already as thick and straight as a witch’s staff—painfully hard, painfully rigid, close to bursting with the spell it wished to cast. And as though wishing to control that power, John’s hand pumped me—just once—down and up, big fist grazing my belly and then sliding up to the sensitive glans. I shuddered from head to toe. “John…”

His hands moved over me, urging me up, helping me into position, and it was easy and familiar as I maneuvered into place between John’s powerful thighs. John’s cock nudged my ass, and John spoke soft words, nasty words against my ear. I laughed, my breath caught, I laughed again.

Sex. There’s really nothing like it. You say the things you would never otherwise speak aloud. You show the things you would never otherwise reveal. We are naked in sex as we are naked nowhere else.

He said, “There are days when it’s all I can do to concentrate on anything but this.” His cock scraped lightly down the crack of my ass, seeking entrance, trying for that opening spell.

“But of course,” I said. “This is yours. I am yours. As you are mine.” So mote it be.

I couldn’t help the instinctive arch as John’s thick cock pushed into my body, piercing me, but slowly, savoringly, John’s breath catching, his heart thumping against my shoulder blades.

“Jesus. God. Cosmo…” His voice was rough, unsteady.

I uttered a throaty moan of stung pleasure.

John responded instantly, unleashed, thrusting in fierce, deep strokes, and I slammed back against him. For a few seconds it was simply fucking, something more like a fight than making love. Both of us shoving, crowding, insisting I must have this…

But then the tempo changed, the emotional tempo as well as the rhythm of our humping bodies, and we fell into sync, into an after-you-no-you-first that was more like a dance. A dance where each time we learned—taught each other—new steps.

This was the truth of coupling. Sometimes it was rough and clumsy, and sometimes it was graceful and…attuned. But so long as there was love, the physical exercise itself did not matter.

“Parles-moi,” John gulped, and I laughed because John did not speak French and would not understand what I said, and yet he loved the sound of me speaking French.

My laugh was shaky. “Il fut un temps où…” Once upon a time. “Il y avait un brave soldat…”

John nuzzled beneath my ear, making my whole body feel flushed and damp with our exertions, and his hand covered mine, taking control, pumping my cock in hard, strong strokes, an efficient milking. Glittering drops formed at the slit of my throbbing penis.

And then John’s whole body stiffened, he cried out, and I felt the jolt of his orgasm thrumming through my body, singing through me, setting me alight. I too began to come in heated, sparkling spurts.

It seemed to go on and on, and yet was still over far too fast. John’s thrusts began to slow. He shuddered. Thrust against me sharply, once…twice… Shivered again.

Still joined, still one, we collapsed into the downy cloud of the bedclothes, and John’s face nudged mine, John’s mouth latching on, sweet, but still hungry as though it was not enough, could never be enough. My chest tightened in crazy emotional response.

My own erection was retreating fast, moving to a safe distance, and after a few moments John’s stiff length softened, slipped out of my body. He pulled me into his arms, rested his flushed face against my damp hair.

 

 

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

John’s eyes glowed yellow in the firelight. His smile was cruel as he watched Lachlan jab the fire, then raise the sizzling red-hot tip of the spit to my eyes. I tried frantically to pull away, but the witch collar held me fast. My screams echoed off the stones of the dungeon walls.

 

 

“Cos. Cosmo. Cos. Open your eyes.”

Did I know that faraway voice?

“Cos. Sweetheart. It’s me. You’re dreaming.”

I stopped struggling, stopped screaming, opened my eyes.

I was in bed. My bed. My bedroom. The lamp was on, light radiating off the crystal knobs atop each tall and graceful bedpost, illuminating the armoire with its carved lovebirds, the Scully & Scully porcelain soldiers at attention on the fireplace mantel, and John’s worry-lined face.

John.

His chestnut hair stuck up in tufts. His eyes looked black with apprehension. His voice was sleep-roughened, strained.

“It’s just a dream. A bad dream. We all have them. You’re all right now.” He added doubtfully, “Are you all right?”

I was still shaking, my body soaked in sweat, breathing hard, breathing as though I’d been running for my life. Running without stop for three hundred and sixty years.

“J-John?” I wheezed.

Relief flooded his face. “That’s right. It’s me. See? Everything’s okay. You’re perfectly safe.”

I couldn’t tear my gaze from his—those same fierce yellow eyes of the man in my dream.

The man in my dream? That man had been John. The hair, the clothes had been different, but the voice, the eyes, the hatred… That was John.

Had been John.

John, watching me closely, said, “What was it, Cos? What did you dream?”

“Nothing.”

He looked startled and then confused. “Nothing?”

I sat up, pushing into the pillows piled against the brass star plaque of the headboard. “It was just a dream.” My voice still sounded shaky.

“But… You don’t remember?”

“No.”

His eyes flickered, absorbing the obvious lie, the distance I was automatically putting between us. He said slowly, as though it was only sinking in, “Are you afraid of me, Cos?”

“Of course not,” I said quickly. Too quickly.

“You are.” He sounded winded. Gut punched.

And even though I was afraid of him, even though the dream still felt terrible and real, I couldn’t bear the pain in his eyes.

“No.” I reached out, my hand closing on his wrist—and his hand was ice cold. In all the time I had known him—did I even know how long I had known him?—he had always been warm to the touch, as if powered by his own internal aeolipile. “No,” I repeated.

“I would never hurt you. Never.”

I nodded.

His smile hurt my heart. “You don’t believe me.”

“I do believe you.”

“No. You want to, but you don’t.” He pulled away—not roughly, not in anger. “It’s… I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

“No.”

He hesitated. “What did you dream?”

I swallowed. “I don’t— I can’t—”

It took him a moment, but then he nodded, accepting it. “Until you can, I can’t sleep here.”

I let out a tremulous breath. “That—that’s silly, John. You don’t have to.”

“Yes. I do. I can’t sleep in here so long as you’re afraid of me.” He stepped into his slippers, picked up his robe from the back of the winged chair near the little staircase.

“Do you want the light on or off?”

“Off.” I wanted the reassurance of moonlight, the shelter of darkness.

He turned off the lamp and again hesitated, a tall shadow in the light from the windows. I could feel his hurt, his confusion, his unease.

“John…”

“It’s all right.” His voice was calm. “Go back to sleep, Cos.”

He left the room, closing the door softly behind him. I slumped against the pillows. Tears stung my eyes.

Worst of all, I was relieved by his decision.