Body Temperature and Rising - Book One of the Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy (15 page)

He scissored two fingers into her sticky pout while the rough pad of his thumb went to work on her clit. She tensed and shifted and rubbed her scantily-clad arse back against the bulge threatening the integrity of Anderson’s immaculate trousers. Her skirt had ridden up until only her knickers separated her undulating arse from his fly, and he responded by matching her, undulation for undulation. ‘Shall you make me come in my trousers, Marie?’ he grunted. ‘It seems unavoidable under our present circumstances.’ The last words were barely forced between his lips before he convulsed and uttered what might have been a stream of foreign expletives. It might have been the day’s grocery list for all Marie cared as she rode his dancing fingers to her own shuddering orgasm.

‘Leave it,’ Anderson said when she shoved away toward the bathroom for a quick clean-up. He held her gaze. ‘Sadly, I’m sure you must have noticed the one thing I am incapable of in the flesh is a scent of my own. It is the part of my condition I regret the most. I had a very virile scent.’ He licked her juices from his fingers. ‘But it is sex magic that is practised in this household, and with what we are to face, the ambrosial smell of your sex is powerful magic, the scent of the ultimate creative force in the world.’ He rested a hand low against her belly. ‘Never underestimate that force, my dear Marie.’ 

‘Oh, and my love, perhaps you would like to know,’ Anderson turned her to face him. ‘Tim Meriwether’s impassioned cry for me to go to your aid nearly split the Ether in twain last night. There were others upon whom he could have called, but he did not. It is possible he does not dislike me too terribly, nor is he completely opposed to me taking my sexual pleasure with you.’

She felt a shiver of tenderness beneath her rib cage. ‘I didn’t know.’

Before they could continue the intriguing conversation, there was a soft knock on the door and Sky poked her head inside. ‘Tim and Fiori have just arrived.’

Only a few hours ago, Tim would have never imagined that he would be returning to Elemental Cottage as an invited guest rather than a gate-crasher, and with Fiori on his arm. Well, actually he was on her arm, which made walking a whole lot less painful. A little while before they left, she had given him some kind of herbal draft that tasted like something she’d had Michael shovel out of the mare’s stable. She might have done just that, as angry as she had been at him earlier, but whatever it was, it had taken the edge off the pain and made him feel quite mellow, which was a good thing considering where he was and what was about to happen. 

Flanked by tall and willowy Sky, Tara greeted her reluctant guest with a smile that seemed warm enough, warmer than he deserved, he was sure. She wore a thin summer wraparound dress with a flowing skirt and a deep-cut bodice. Her hair was done in a loose knot on the top of her head with a single red rose resting in the nest of shiny dark curls. Though she looked the epitome of feminine beauty and grace, for an instant, he saw in his mind’s eye the woman on the fell top, who wielded expertly a bad-arse, magical sword. The thought stirred him more than he would have thought possible, made him blush, tightened his nipples and forced him to readjust his stance so his cock sat more comfortably in his jeans. 

‘Welcome to Elemental Cottage, Tim Meriwether.’ Her voice drew his attention back to the gracious woman standing in front of him, the 250-year-old woman standing in front of him, he reminded himself. 

He had just mumbled some sort of greeting, and Tara had turned to embrace Fiori when he found himself nearly nose to nose with the cool, elegant Anderson, hand in hand with Marie, whose clothing did little to ease the growing weight of his cock. 

Before he could say anything, Marie came into his arms, a little less gently than was comfortable on his aching body, but balm for the soul to the rest of him. ‘I’m so glad you’re safe,’ she breathed against his ear. ‘I was so worried.’ Then, as though it didn’t matter at all who saw, she lifted her lips to his and kissed him hard, reacquainting her tongue with his. The feel of her, the smell of her overrode caution. Ignoring the pain in his ribs, he pulled her tighter and returned her kiss. When he pulled away, nearly passing out from the pain of it, it was Anderson who steadied him. 

‘I am told you fought courageously, Tim Meriwether, though I am not surprised.’ He offered Tim his hand.

Tim shook it. ‘Thank you for taking care of Marie.’

Anderson offered a smile that seemed to turn slightly inward. ‘Taking care of our Marie is no hardship, as you know.’

Tim felt a different kind of heat between his hip bones, not unpleasant at all, and rather intriguing that the two of them might share Marie amicably and that she would be OK with that. He held the ghosts gaze and offered a slight nod. ‘No. No hardship at all.’

Tara led everyone into the lounge, which now showed no evidence of the destruction Tim had brought on Tara Stone’s home. It pained him terribly now to think what he had done. But when the woman sat him on the sofa with Marie seated next to him and Anderson on the other side of her, he got the impression that perhaps Tara had a wicked sense of humour. 

When tea had been poured and all politeness dealt with, Tara placed her cup down on the carved wood coffee table and sat silently for a moment. Her head was bowed, her hands were folded in her lap, as though she were collecting her thoughts. 

At last she spoke. ‘Marie, Tim, I’m sorry that you’ve been dragged into our nightmare. Believe me there’s nothing in my power I wouldn’t have done to prevent it. But it’s happened. You are a part of it now, both of you, and like it or not, you’re fighting for your lives.’ 

The woman’s bluntness was a bit shocking at first, but Tim had to admit he liked it. He liked that she didn’t try to soft pedal the truth. 

She glanced first at Anderson then at Fiori. ‘I know you two well enough to know that most of what I would now say you’ve already regaled our new friends with.’ She waved aside their slightly embarrassed looks. 

‘It’s just as well. That means we can get on with what really matters, and that is, first of all to train the two of you so there’ll be no more unnecessary surprises, so that you’re connected to the coven and can use your own magic effectively as well as the collective magic we share. We’re stronger together that we are alone. And if we’re to hold any chance of defeating Deacon and getting our lives back then we’ll need all the strength we can get.’

‘Then we do plan to fight him?’ Tim asked quietly, suddenly finding himself the centre of attention.

Tara’s grey eyes bore into him with heat much deeper than what the ghosts made him feel. ‘Yes, Tim. We plan to fight him, and we plan to defeat him and take back what’s ours. It won’t be easy for the two of you.’

Tim found himself gripping the arm of the sofa as though he were afraid he’d be ejected. ‘It hasn’t been easy in a while.’ 

Marie laced her fingers through his and gave them a reassuring squeeze. ‘How soon can we get started, then? We know what we’re up against, now I’d like to know what our weapons are and how we use them.’

‘You don’t know what you’re up against, Marie.’ Tara’s voice was calm. ‘If you think you’ve seen the monster at his worst, then it’ll be your undoing.’ 

Anderson bristled, and gripped Marie’s other hand. But before he could say anything, Tara continued, ‘Deacon will test and probe and push, but never use more energy than he needs until he has you complacent. And each time your guard’s down, he’ll be studying you, observing you, getting to know you even better than you know yourself. And he’ll keep it up until at last he discovers the perfect way to hurt you the most, to do the most damage to you, to all of those you love, and,’ her voice softened, ‘to me.’

Marie’s face was suddenly porcelain pale. Tim was instantly on alert, remembering the way she had hyperventilated that first morning in her kitchen, the morning she had discovered she could see ghosts. Had it been such a short time ago? 

But when Marie spoke, her voice was firm. She held Tara’s gaze. ‘Then perhaps that’s our strongest weapon, knowing what he really wants.’

Tara nodded slowly. ‘And making damn sure he doesn’t get it this time.’

‘This training we’ll receive,’ Tim said. ‘What does it involve and how soon can we get started?’

‘Now would be good,’ Tara replied. ‘Tim you’ll need to stay at Elemental Cottage tonight. Fiori tells me she’s made arrangements for your farm to be seen to.’

‘I understand,’ Tim replied. 

‘Good.’ She turned to Sky. ‘Is the Room of Reflection ready?’

Sky nodded

‘There’s little time to waste, since we don’t know how long it’ll take Deacon to regain his strength, or if he even needs to regain his strength. It may be that he’s just toying with us. But the more magic we generate, the stronger we make ourselves, so it’s to our advantage to bring the two of you into the coven as soon as possible, teach you the basic Love Spell and train you as best we can to do magical battle with a demon.’ Tara forced a smile. ‘And all that before breakfast in the morning.’

‘Shall we, then?’ Sky stood and motioned for them to follow. 

Chapter 15

Sky led them down the hall past an antique mirror that Tim had nearly shoved Anderson through when he’d barged his way in the other night. But now, as the sun glowed low on the horizon, the mirror seemed strangely dark and cloudy. It was only then that he realised Sky was alone with the two of them; the others had somehow vanished. 

Sky led them past a study, with tall bookshelves rising out of the deepening shadows, to where a large wooden staircase curved upward into darkness. The flame of a large candle quivered ensconced at the foot of the stairs in a free-standing pedestal. She took a tapir from a basket on the floor, lit it, and motioned them to follow her up the stairs. 

‘Do you feel that?’ Marie whispered in Tim’s ear as the two began their ascent hand in hand. ‘It’s like champagne bubbles bursting all over.’

Tim would have said it was more like insects crawling on his skin, but investment bankers and farmers thought differently, no doubt. ‘I thought it might be just the herbs Fiori gave me,’ Tim whispered back.

‘It is the herbs, among other things,’ Sky replied. Tim didn’t think he’d spoken loud enough to be heard. Sky continued, ‘Marie was given the same. What you’re feeling is the thinning of the veil between worlds, a phenomenon that occurs when high magic is done, but one that can be enhanced by certain herbs, even alcohol and drugs carefully used. And certainly by sex. The herbs you’ve been given will aid you on this first journey through the veil so that you’ll be able to relax and concentrate more fully on the experience.’ 

The stairs felt as though they wound upward forever, another symptom of the herbs, Tim figured. At last Sky led them into a large round chamber. Inside candles sparkled like fairy lights around the room. Tim blinked and rubbed his eyes as he realised that in reality there was only a single candle at the centre on a hulk of a wooden table. It reflected off a circle of full length, ornately carved mirrors at the perimeter of the room. With a resounding click that made both him and Marie jump, Sky closed the door behind them, and it was as though they had been set adrift on an empty sea, just them in the round room full of mirrors.

‘This is our sacred space,’ Sky said. 

Tim was surprised to find the other three Elementals were already there. 

As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he could see that Tara alone stood in the middle of the room. With a smaller candle, she lit what appeared to be a silver bowl filled with dried grasses and herbs, which sparked and glowed red while she gently blew on it. The glow softened to an ember, and a thin swirl of smoke wavered, then rose like a coiling serpent from the dish. The scent of fire gave way to the sweet smells of a Cumbrian meadow in high summer, a scent that seemed to writhe upward and outward and curl its way around Tim until he could almost feel it inside him. 

From two earthenware bowls, which looked to be full of salt, Tara and Anderson each took an amulet suspended on a silver chain. 

‘These are the tools of a rider.’ Tara said. As she approached Tim with hers, he could see as it caught the light of the candle that it was a small silver mirror. Anderson settled a similar one around Marie’s neck. 

‘They were made especially for the two of you, and they will align to the energies of your bodies and respond to your desires only.’ Tim could barely hear Tara above the thrumming in his ears as she eased it around his neck. It wasn’t just in his ears, but he felt it in his body. Marie felt what he felt. He knew it. He sensed it at almost the same second she did. 

‘The amulet is a bit disorienting at first,’ Tara said. ‘That’ll pass quickly. But the feeling will be stronger for the two of you. Because you’ve shared love, your bodies know each other, and because you’re both riders, it’s not just your bodies that have bonded. As the veil between worlds thins, so will the veil of the boundary that separates the two of you. It may be a bit disconcerting at first, but two witches working as one are more than twice as powerful, as you may well have occasion to appreciate.’ She eyed them both for a second then shot a glance at Anderson, then Fiori. ‘Inadvertently you’ve both created a double bond, Tim, you with Fiori, and Marie with Anderson. Such bonds within the coven are encouraged. With the situation we now face, any added strength is appreciated.’ 

She continued, ‘As you may have guessed from this room, the mirror is the tool of a rider. Not just your amulet, but any mirror or anything that might capture reflection. Our lives are only reflections experienced through the mirrors of our personalities and our psyches. Our minds give substance to those experiences over and over again. We give them life and breath, even flesh. This is the heart of enfleshment, the secret of the Love Spell.’ 

As Tara spoke, Anderson moved to flank her and the other two women took up positions at the perimeter of the circle of mirrors. Fiori took Marie by the hand and led her to stand next to a large mirror trimmed in silver. Tara motioned Tim to her, and on legs that were none too steady, he moved to her side. 

‘Men have no place at the Quarters, Tim Meriwether. If Marie is willing and worthy, she will become the Guardian of the West and of the Element of Water, a position that has long been vacant within this coven. And, as Anderson is the Guardian of all things below and the realm of the hidden, so you will become the Guardian of all things above, and all things to be revealed, if you will.’

He was just about to make some lame-arse comment about club membership dues when she raised a hand to him so swiftly that he thought she would slap him.

‘Don’t mock the trust placed in you.’ She took a step closer and he felt the fine hairs on his body rise, and his skin buzzed with her sudden nearness. ‘I’m not Serina Ravenmoor and this is no psychic fair. Don’t doubt for one second that Deacon takes you and all of us very seriously, and he’s even now planning your death, Tim Meriwether.’

The chill that passed through him made him feel thin on the ground, like water with no container, like death itself had passed through him and left a tiny trace of it upon his flesh. He shuddered, recalling once again the ease with which Deacon had manipulated him and the power Tara had commanded on the fell top when she banished him. And suddenly he was unable to meet her gaze.

‘Now then,’ she said. ‘It’s the spell you need. The power to give flesh and to take flesh away is a rider’s main tool. And no matter how powerful Deacon is, in the end he has no flesh of his own – no real flesh. And this is his hunger, his desire, and his weakness. That means you both must be skilled at the use of the spell.’ She nodded to Marie. ‘Since it’s apparently hers from birth, then it’s you, Tim Meriwether, to whom we must give the spell, and as the high priestess of this coven, the task falls to me.’

It took him a few seconds to realise that while she spoke to him, she had unbuttoned his shirt, and with a flick of her wrists, she pushed it off his shoulders. He tensed, fearing there would be more disrobing, fearing exposure in a neurotic way that made no sense in a place that was all about sex magic. 

But it was Tara who shed the thin dress that had clothed her, and he caught his breath at the sight of her, muscle and scars, more scars than any person should have, and womanly curves that made him burn at his centre in a different way than the fire he felt from the ghosts. Instantly, he was hard. Surely she knew, but she paid no attention. ‘You have already seen more of my soul than I would have ever had you know, Tim Meriwether. I am exposed to you, vulnerable, and in being so, I offer you the gift of the Love Spell.’

She was nearly as tall as he was, and when she took him in her arms, it was eye-to-eye. Her lips brushed his earlobe, and he strained to hear what she said, but the room seemed to be full of whispering, and there was fidgeting, restless fidgeting. Why was everyone fidgeting?

She rested a hand low on his belly so that her fingertips slid just below the waistband of his jeans, and suddenly it felt as though her fingers had reached inside him, deeper than skin, deeper than blood and bone. His muscles tightened, his cock surged, and she reached still deeper, deeper than he knew himself to be, dizzyingly deep, frighteningly deep. Suddenly it was as though all that made him solid, all that made him substantial vanished and he was left to the mercy of the press and flow of the air around him desperately trying to hold himself together, desperately trying to keep from flying apart into all of the directions the Elementals so carefully guarded. And damn it, the fidgeting grew still more restless and the whispering rose to murmurs. Wasn’t there some sort of magical protocol to keep witches quiet when a man was being taken apart one molecule at a time? 

The panic was worse for having no substance with which to embody it, and just when the last bits of him threatened to pass through the cracks in the floorboards and dissipate forever, he felt the ticklish trail of her hand up over his ribcage and his sternum, up over the exposed flesh of his throat. In the time it had to move around his neck to rest at the base of his skull he was overwhelmed by the sudden weight of his own flesh, expanding back into itself like stone. 

‘Flesh is most precious to those who have none, Tim Meriwether.’ There were murmurs of agreement, a shuffling of feet, a rustling of clothing, which Tara seemed to have no trouble ignoring. She continued calmly, ‘And flesh is the precious gift you may give. And here is how you will offer that gift.’ The murmuring crescendoed, sounding more like a party at the local pub than the working of high magic.

Just when he feared his whole body was turning to stone, just when he was about to clutch at his throat for breath, she took his mouth, and with her kiss oxygen rushed to his brain and his whole being; air that was clean and pure and life giving. It was just a brush with her lips, and only just barely, and yet it filled him, opened him, focused him. And at the second brush of her lips, as her hand at the base of his neck curled lightly in his hair, he heard the whisper in his head, in some language long dead, some language he should not have understood, and yet he did. 

As her kiss became more insistent, he saw in his mind’s eye what she spoke in his head. And as it took shape, like mist rising off Derwent Water in the early morning, he knew it was the spell. And it was not just with his mind that he knew it, but as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her back, as he felt the press of her breasts against him and the expansion of her ribs with her breath, he knew it in his body, like knowing how to breathe, like knowing how to sleep and wake and eat and drink and love. 

‘I understand,’ he breathed against her lips. ‘I see it. I know it.’ 

There was a murmur of approval, and it was only as she stepped back that he realised the Elementals and Marie had not moved or spoken, but the mirrors, each mirror, was crowded with dim reflections of people he could just barely make out, people who seemed to move and shuffle and press forward from just beyond the reflection. 

Tara watched him silently as his gaze fell upon the crowd looking out through the dark glass. Then she took him by the hand and led him close to the mirror opposite the door. His reflection was still visible in the surface, but through it he saw all of the others who looked out at him with anxious eyes. 

‘Ghosts?’ he asked.

She nodded.

Ghosts didn’t frighten him any more. Not after having lived with their constant presence for the past three months. He reached out his hand expecting to touch the mirror. There was a shifting and a collective intake of breath, and it was as though the mirror turned to water beneath his fingers.

‘The mirrors are only a tool, Tim, choose one person, and use the spell.’

Almost before he fully realised he had set the spell in motion, a cold hand snaked forward and grabbed him by the wrist. 

The feel of it was shocking, and he cried out and pulled backward, but Tara steadied him. ‘Don’t be startled, all ghosts feel cold when they first take flesh. You can already feel warming, pulsing, the flow of blood pinkening the skin.’ 

Tim felt all those things in an overwhelming avalanche of sensations pressing in from all directions. He swayed, and a sudden wave of nausea threatened to embarrass him in his first real attempt at magic. Anderson moved forward to steady him, and the mirror was once again solid. The shadows within faded away. Tara shoved a piece of shortbread between his lips as Anderson settled him onto the floor, and instead of being repulsed by it, he was suddenly ravenous.

‘It’s enough,’ Tara said. ‘And considerably more than I’d hoped for.’

‘Hungarian Goulash in the slow cooker,’ Fiori said. ‘And I think we could all use some sustenance.’

Tim just barely managed to keep his eyes open while he ate, in spite of being ravenous. He remembered being led to a bed in a quiet room with a window full of moonlight, and he remembered pulling an equally exhausted Marie into his arms, but he didn’t remember much else. 

Somewhere long toward morning, he rose to follow her into the garden. The heat had barely dissipated and the air smelled of roses and night blooming jasmine. The fells loomed like giant temple guardians all around them. He followed her through the wild profusion of green shrubbery deeper into the garden, feeling the odd scratch of bramble and sting of nettle against his naked thighs. He knew the garden was big, but he hadn’t imagined it to be this big, nor this untended. Every time he reached for her, she was just beyond his fingertips. 

He walked endlessly, the heavy heat of the night dissipating around him to a fetid chill, the brambles drawing blood, the nettles stinging low in his belly. He followed her into a cave, its floor littered with slate leavings, which cut his feet as he slipped and slid over them to get to her. It was dark, so dark he could feel the lack of light like another presence in the cave, brushing against him. Yet even in the close blindness pressing in on him, he could see her, pale like anaemic moonlight through the mist on the fells. The burning in his groin did not dissipate, but grew stronger with each step he took until it felt like fire blooming in his gut. Marie disappeared around a bend into the darkness and he heard her moan. Oh yes, he heard her moan. The need, the hunger in her voice vibrated through him like a heatwave. His heart raced, his cock felt heavy, desperate for her. He hurried to catch up with her ignoring his bleeding feet, stumbling and slipping on the slate.