The Witch's Dream - A Love Letter to Paranormal Romance (Black Swan 2) (36 page)

B Team shared a laugh. Katrina said something about two big days coming up, said good night, and left the four sitting together in companionable silence listening to the serenade of frogs, crickets, and cicadas. All may have been sharing the same thought. That it could be the last time.

Suddenly, a cool breeze pierced the warm night air ruffling hair and clothes and shifting the mood. The wind chimes and the leaves of the cottonwood trees sang in response to the harbinger night wind. It blew through almost instantly, but left behind a distinct aroma, the promise of a rainstorm. When they saw lightning in the distance, they took it as a cue and mutually agreed to adjourn for the night.

"Can I take a pure human through a pass?" Litha asked Deliverance.

"I won't lie to you and say, 'No', but it would not be in your best interest for me to show you how. There are far more who do not survive it than those who do."

She sighed. "Okay. How can I be sure I'm taking the pass closest to where Storm is?"

"I want to show you something. But first I have two gifts." Smiling, he handed her a pendulum. "It's made of black diamond from Ovelgoth Alla and it's programmed for my life signature. You'll always be able to find me. Anytime. And it comes with one more thing."

He tilted her chin up with his forefinger so that she was looking at him full in the face. "Your demon name. I wasn't there to name you, as I should have been, as I wish I'd been. But, life is for learning and I'm claiming a do over - giving you your Abraxas name now. It's Liberty."

Litha fell in love with it as soon as the sound had left his lips and knew he had chosen well. She had to run it over her vocal chords.

"Liberty." She said it almost reverently while she clutched the black diamond pendulum in her hand. It also felt like it belonged there. Her expression said she accepted his treasures in the spirit intended and he was satisfied.

"I don't have anything for you."

The demon laughed. "Litha, you've already given me what I want most - time spent with you."

Those words pierced through the remainder of reserve she had erected around her heart. While she was trying to decide what to say, he turned away suddenly and picked up her luggage, two vintage, Gucci soft sides filled with the wardrobe she'd acquired piece by piece during times when he was "busy" with incubus business.

Daddy had spoiled his little girl rotten. She'd enjoyed every minute of it and had the loot as a bonus. She hoped it was going to be a trousseau.

Litha followed him into the null space and tracked him through the ride he chose. When they stepped out, they stood in a parking lot with him smiling like he had feathers on his chin. He set the luggage down.

"What?" she asked looking around to see what could be so amusing.

"It's yours," he said.

There was nothing there except an outrageously divine automobile sitting alone under a parking lot spotlight. It was a red Aston Martin DBS convertible, perhaps the shiniest car she had ever seen.

"You don't mean this?" She pointed to the car.
She stared for a minute and then treated him to her throaty laugh that was music to his ears.

"All yours. Pink slip has your name on it. It's in the glove compartment."

"Let me see." The passenger door was unlocked. She slid in and opened the glove compartment, half expecting some practical joke to jump out at her. What she found was a new passport and driver's license with a good photo of her and a pink slip that, true to his word, had her name on it. Litha Liberty Brandywine. She opened her mouth to ask how he had managed that, but before she got the question out, she saw the sales price listed on the receipt, and almost choked. "Three hundred thousand dollars?"

She got out of the car, closed the door, and stepped back like she'd done something wrong by sitting in it. "That's..." she stopped for just a second to calculate, "...four times what I make in a year. And it's completely overwhelming."

He beamed at her.

"I'm not sure I should take it. I'm not sure I
can
take it. I don't think I can even afford the insurance on my salary."

“Come now. Did I not miss everything? Birthdays, graduations, soccer games? Let me be a proud Dad. As far as insurance, upkeep, all that stuff, it's taken care of.”

"It is?"

"Trust me."

"I have a standing policy of running the other direction whenever someone says, 'Trust me.'"

He smiled broadly. "That's my girl."

"I didn't play soccer."

"Then that's one less thing I missed."

She realized that she was hesitating to say goodbye. How odd. “If I get Storm to marry me, I don’t think his friends will appreciate you showing up for a father daughter dance. Not after you abducted Kay's fiancée and caused so much trouble.”

“Father daughter dance," he mused. "Well, just as long as you know I would want to.”

"The phrase, demon's daughter, has kind of a dark poetic ring. I could get used to it."

"That's my girl." Deliverance gave her a hug that said he hoped this wasn't the last time he'd see her. He put her bags in the trunk and pointed toward the road. "You take this road that way for thirteen miles. Just think about him and the seven-monks-pendulum will take you right to him."

Litha went up on her toes for one more hug. "Dad, I..."

Well, well. Life was full of surprises. The demon had cajoled and entertained and manipulated his way into her heart. Words caught in her throat when she realized she felt overly emotional about saying goodbye. She would probably always find it strange having a father who appeared to be thirty and it would only get stranger as she continued to age, but no one had any choice about the dads they get. Maybe they weren't all demons, but none of them were perfect either.

The road was the triple threat: narrow, hilly, and curvy. Oh. And it was also pitch black, not a street lamp in twenty miles. The fact that there was no one else out was a blessing because headlights coming at you in utter darkness could be disorienting. Litha had never been a car enthusiast, far from it, but she'd have to be in discarnate form not to appreciate the virtues of an ultimate driving machine like that: the smell, the feel of the leather, the luxurious numeral clock, and the way it drove. Talk about "handling" had never interested her before, but now her consciousness had been raised to the level of devotee. The car seemed to respond to her thoughts.

With every mile she got closer to Storm she felt like her heart was beating a little faster. She was glad the top was up on the car because she thought she saw lightning. She had worn a sleeveless white cotton dress because she expected the air to be warm and sultry. Seeing the lightning she wondered now if she shouldn't have picked something heavier. Or brought a sweater.

She was following the pendulum by the lights from the dashboard. It pointed straight ahead.

Everybody had gone to bed. Storm lay on his back on top of the cotton quilt cover on the screen porch cot wearing nothing but jeans. It was too hot for a shirt and too public for underwear. He had thought sleeping semi-outdoors would help settle his mind, but his thoughts were a jumble. They were there for a happy occasion, but he felt shrouded in sadness.

Ram and Elora were going to be parents, as mind boggling as that was. And, although nothing had been said, it only stood to reason that their days as active knights were coming to an end in the
very
near future. Kay and Katrina would be married the day after next and Kay wasn't coming back. He knew he should be feeling happy for his friends.

Swinging his legs around, he sat up on the side of the old iron army cot and lit a small, thin, black cigar. He sat smoking and listening for what he thought might be distant thunder. The glow of the cigar end seemed almost like company when he took a drag. And his thoughts went back to Litha. Again.

He was thinking that what had happened with Elora hadn't just left him shaken. It had left him handicapped with no confidence where women were concerned. He groaned out loud when he remembered the first time he saw Litha. The brash and beautiful witch had taken his breath away when she'd breezed in with her intoxicating scent and a field of electrical excitement that hovered in the air around her. He'd had the good fortune to attract the unlikely attention of a woman like that and how had he responded?
I'm not interested in a relationship.
What a douche!

That's when it hit him like a shot to the solar plexus. His epiphany.

The best thing that had ever happened to him was that Elora Laiken had turned him down. Here, he had spent months feeling sorry for himself only to find out that it was a blessing of the richest kind. Alone on a cot on a screen porch, he laughed out loud at his own stupidity and his own wretched timing.

What he had felt for Elora was a suggestion of love, a protective, almost brotherly instinct. Was it a connection? Yeah. Was it chemistry? That, too. But it was a far, far cry from the cock throbbing, gut wrenching, desperate stuff of night sweats that he felt for that witch. With Elora he had never been fighting with his own hands, constantly pulling them into fists to keep from reaching out and touching. Waking Woden! The merciless, relentless need that never stopped day or night. That was, he supposed, what Ram and Elora felt for each other. And he had tried to interfere with that? Thank the gods he hadn't gotten away with it.

Until now he hadn't even wondered why he'd never had an urgent desire to make love to Elora. Hell. He hadn't even tried to kiss her until they were on the way to meet his family and present themselves as an engaged couple. Why was he just now recognizing that there was something terribly wrong with that picture? The only thing stranger than that was that she had even considered going along with it. Eventually it would have sentenced three people to a life of unhappiness.

That feeling of bleak emptiness when Elora chose Ram? That wasn't heartbreak. Now that it was too late, he saw it for what it was. The death of a false dream.

He had wanted someone to share his vision of life in a romantic villa on the Sonoma Coast high above the sea. When Elora had materialized out of thin air and reached out for him, he had mistaken the event as providence and latched onto the idea that she was
the
one. In his ignorance about life, women, relationships, everything, he had drastically oversimplified mating.

There was an opening for a woman in his plan. So he'd tried to insert Elora into that slot. Whether she fit or not.

Now he understood that he'd had a chance for love. He should have grabbed for it with both hands when the real thing was standing right in front of him in the form of a wonderfully quirky witch with deep green eyes and red, red lips, saying, "Pick me". Instead he pushed her away.

Fate gave him an incomparable beauty who wanted exactly the same things from life that he did and, instead of thanking his lucky stars and embracing his good fortune with all the unfettered passion it deserved, he had been suspicious, reserved, mean, maybe even cruel. When it came to fucking himself over, it seemed he was about to be inducted to the hall of fame.

What had he thought he was waiting for? The "girl next door"? He pushed out a breath and almost groaned out loud at his own stupidity. Since the day Sol had showed up in his middle school Vice Principal's office, what in his life had ever been ordinary? It was only fitting that the women in his life be extraordinary.

He could hear the game show emcee in his head. "Bachelorette Number One hails from another dimension. She loves chocolate and can kick tail six ways from Sunday. Bachelorette Number Two is a breath stealing, half-demon witch who might disappear right into a wall just when a guy finally gets around to being serious about kissing."

Come to think of it, the fact that she was a
sex
demon's daughter could explain a lot about the palpitations and erotic dreams, not that there was anything wrong with being attracted to a woman who could get you hard with nothing more than a glance.

As he was dropping the little cigar butt into a soda can, he thought he might have caught a flash of lightning out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head that direction and looked up into the night sky through the practically invisible screen, then decided it was his mind playing tricks and lay back on the cot.

She said not even demons could keep her away. He was grateful she had included that vow in her message to him. It had given him something to hold onto. And he would hold onto that until the world looked level. He’d learned his lesson about doubting her.

More lightning flashed in his range of vision. This time thunder followed a couple of seconds later. No mistake. A storm was coming. The temperature dropped fifteen degrees in a matter of minutes, transforming the hot, still night into an event charged with excitement. Everywhere his skin was exposed it felt like static brushed over tiny body hairs lovingly, urging them to stand up at attention.

The harbinger was a pleasant little breeze, but before there was time to adjust to the cooler temperature, it began to gust, blowing trees and bushes into a frenzy, kicking the usually calm waters of the river into ripples that sloshed against the banks. The air filled with the potent and pungent aroma of rainstorm coming.
Litha.
He hoped to the gods she was safe. Wherever she was.