Witch Interrupted (9 page)

He suddenly released her wrist and slid his fingers between hers. Their hands twined and clasped, but his expression didn’t change.

Her breasts felt swollen, her nipples sensitive. The bra cups he’d searched barely covered her. The heel of his hand chafed her clit through the damp satin as he checked for lavender. Or whatever he was doing, because it was feeling more and more like foreplay.

The contradiction of one hand twined around hers like a lover and the other searching her for weapons only made it worse. His touch roused her so much she began to ache.

Katie needed to squirm. Spread her legs. She’d never been this conflicted about a man, a wolf. Wolves were forbidden for witches. All witches. It was wrong to feel this way, to want him to force this on her, to exert his power over her.

She wanted him wild, wanted to be driven wild. The wolf was supposed to be her deepest fear, only the truth was, it was her deepest fantasy.

“What are you thinking?” he murmured. “Your face is so expressive when you aren’t being Chang Cai. Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“Anger,” she lied. Both their voices were hushed.

“You don’t smell angry.” He lowered his chin, staring down her body, at her breasts, at the way his hand wrapped between her legs.

“And you don’t feel impersonal,” she retorted. He felt wonderful. Darkly seductive. She throbbed with need. “Your eyes are wolfed out. Are you losing control?”

“The wolf isn’t simple to manage. It’s not my favorite part of the transformation.”

“What did you expect? That you’d be unchanged, except stronger? The wolf takes over, Marcus.” She’d seen it too many times, a witch turned feral after transformation. Born wolves spent years learning control; they didn’t leap into the wolf-state overnight.

“You’re wrong.” His lips tightened. “A good scientist verifies every hypothesis.”

“You have a hypothesis?”

“I have several.” He stretched the elastic of her panties, checked the inside of the fabric and snapped them back into place without touching her. “One down.”

A devil possessed her. An aching, infatuated, needy devil that knew Marcus was close to the edge and wanted to send him over. “No cavity search?”

He smiled down at her slowly, triumphantly. “Do you want one, Katie?”

Lord, yes.

“No.” She clutched his hand convulsively, as if she could send him the message that way. “But I thought you didn’t trust me.”

“I don’t.” His fingers brushed her thigh. “I also don’t think you’re hiding any more herbs.”

“Then you don’t need the gloves,” she said, hating herself for it.

Not taking his eyes off hers, he raised his hand to his mouth. He caught the bottom of the glove between his teeth and peeled it off his long fingers. The latex fell onto her chest. His gaze scorching, he let his hand drift down, not quite touching her breasts, her stomach, her hip. Not quite touching between her legs.

He traced the edge of her panties. Katie, unable to bear the tension boiling inside her anymore, closed her eyes and gave herself up to sensation.

Marcus lowered himself half on, half off her, his body a cage. She parted her lips eagerly. Instead his cheek brushed hers, whiskers rasping, and he whispered in her ear, “On a scale of one to ten, how aroused would you say you are right now?”

“Wh…what?”

He drew hypnotic circles on her hip, widening them, coming closer and closer to her pussy without giving her what she craved. “Can you feel the wolf inside you? Like when you were young and learning to control it?”

No. Yes. She didn’t know what she felt. Desperate. It wasn’t like this with humans or witches. And she’d not let it get like this with any of her…victims. “I don’t know.”

“It’s a powerful sensation. Impossible to resist.” His lips tickled her ear. Tingles poured through her. His fingers teased. “Have you ever had sex with a wolf, Katie?”

“No.” She tilted her hips, trying to angle herself closer to his touch.

One sly, seductive finger brushed her mound. She shivered. “Your pheromones are off the charts. Do you know how difficult it is for me to concentrate right now?”

“I have an idea.” Lust swirled inside her like a cyclone.

“I don’t appreciate these impulses.” She could feel the heat from his hand. She was so sensitized it made her squirm. “I don’t want to feel like I might…do things to you against your will.”

“If you don’t like it, let me go.” Common sense was disappearing fast. How much of this was actually against her will?

“I can’t seem to stop,” he said, raspy-voiced. He nipped her neck, and she grew that much closer to begging. “This exhilarates me. Is this normal for you?”

She licked her lips. Focusing on the conversation, his breath on her neck and his touch at her hips was almost too much for her. “You mean, do I often get kidnapped by mad scientists? No.”

“Your desire.” His fingers strayed to her other thigh. “It seems out of character for a keeper. For any witch. I’ve never smelled a woman as hot as you.”

“I told you already, I’m not…” She hissed when he tapped her between the legs. “I’m not discussing that.”

“I need to know all the variables. I want to study you.”

“Study?”

“I want to form a new hypothesis.” He rubbed the wet satin over her pussy, his fingers sliding, sliding. “I want you. I want to run tests on you. I want to perform experiments on your body. Your magic. Your abilities. Your reactions to stimuli.” He drew his fingernail across her clit, and she gasped. “I want to dissect you.”

“Sounds painful.” Painful and hedonistic. When could they start?

“I won’t use a knife.” A claw grazed her, applying sharp pressure to her inner thigh. Her legs parted to escape it. He scratched with all four fingers, right across her pussy, the underwear not enough barrier, and too much of one. “But I’ll need to take samples.”

He licked beneath her ear then, a long, slow stroke. The softness of his tongue contrasted with the claws between her legs. One razor-tipped finger located her clit. Katie jerked as electricity shot through her. “Undo my handcuffs.”

“No.” He nibbled her earlobe, her neck, her jawline. Whiskers and teeth. Soft lips and wet tongue. Claws teasing her, tickling her. “That variable isn’t part of today’s experiment.”

“I’m a lab rat now?” She’d be anything he wanted at this point.

“Test subject. Do you consent?” His belt buckle dug into her hip as he maneuvered his leg across her. Claws pricked her lower belly. Slid down. Beneath her panties.

Oh, Goddess. She couldn’t breathe, so she whimpered.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, his voice deeper, more growly.

He was right, of course. But she wasn’t going to say it.

“Describe the sensations when I do this.” He laced his claws through her curls. The tips pricked her flesh, outside her slit. “Could you use magic right now? Or are you too agitated?”

“Give me my—” her boast was interrupted when he slipped a claw oh so carefully into her folds, parting her, “—lavender and find out.”

He smiled against her neck, arrogantly secure in his command. She was his, and he knew it.

“What about when I do this?” The pad of one finger located her clitoris. Skin to skin. She moaned. “Your heart rate jumped. I should have put you on a monitor. My systolic pressure reached approximately one hundred seventy when I transformed, and my oxygen levels increased measurably.”

He’d been measuring himself when he’d had sex with his wolf girlfriend? Who was this guy? “Shut up.”

He inhaled, his breath hot on her neck. “You smell so good. I could almost…” His teeth latched onto her, a burst of pain, while he continued to touch her clit, barely moving, taunting her.

Then he flicked her.

Katie’s hips jerked instinctively. She tugged her arms, struggling enough for him to notice.

He laughed. Claws raked her outer labia. His fingertip began to stroke the slick bud of her clitoris the way she needed. She pressed her cheek to his forehead, her lips on his skin. She said his name. At her response, her compliance, his movements became rougher.

“Marcus. You should stop.” He should stop before she was reduced to begging him to keep going.

His rumble of displeasure burrowed into her. He didn’t like her to tell him what to do. “No.”

“Don’t…” Goddess, how could she say this? He licked her pulse point, and she shuddered. “Don’t stab anything important.”

His touch disappeared.

Was he actually stopping? She was such a hypocrite. Saying no, meaning yes. Giving women and witches everywhere a bad name.

She opened her mouth to thank him anyway. His blunt fingers returned to her before she said a word. He parted her, finding the opening of her vagina and sweeping a groan from her.

No claws.

“So wet.” His voice was barely human. “Katie, I’m weak. I can’t wait. I want to make you come. Say yes.”

He rubbed moisture up to her clit, catching the erect bud so perfectly she flinched. His intentions had firmed like the rest of him. He was forging ahead.

Scientist. Kidnapper. Wolf. To hell with common sense. To hell with the risks. Katie wanted Marcus.

She angled her face toward his, seeking his lips. “Yes.”

That was when he froze. His head came up and he growled, low and deep.

“Someone’s here.”

Not even a wolf’s reaction time was enough to defend against the witch who kicked open the Airstream’s door, hosing him down with cayenne pepper spray.

Marcus howled, rubbing his eyes, which would only make the cayenne spray worse. He shook his head like the wolf he was before crashing to the floor.

Katie sat up and squinted at the fracas. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m the cavalry.” Tonya, about to advance on Marcus and lay the second of the one-two punch on him, raised her eyebrows at Katie. “Oh. My. Should I not have come to rescue you?”

“No, no.” Katie, thoroughly embarrassed but thankful for Tonya’s appearance, tried to make herself decent without her clothes. “Knock him out.”

Marcus, huddled on the floor, whined. Her cayenne spray was not a delicate defense, and he would be in great discomfort.

“Faster. He’s in pain,” Katie demanded.

“Working on it.” Tonya patted his hand, jerking back when his claws got her. “Down, fella. Let me take the hurt away.”

Magic built and popped through the trailer, knocking Marcus out. Finishing the spell would not only put him to sleep but would defuse the cayenne. When he woke, the agony would be just a memory.

Or, if Katie had her way, he wouldn’t remember any of this. Her cayenne blend didn’t interfere with the poppy mix—they’d been formulated to be compatible.

Blood dripped from a shallow claw mark on Tonya’s hand. She shook the spray bottle. “Never thought I’d have to use your wolf-pel.”

Katie pulled the sheet up to her neck. “Where’s Ba?”

“Keeping the car running so we can make our getaway.”

They wouldn’t be making an immediate getaway. They’d be wiping Marcus first. This was their best shot. She didn’t think they could keep him restrained long enough for the situation to improve—and she didn’t trust herself not to be seduced again.

“I need my glasses.” The spray, a weapon from her keeper days, might not work against Marcus much longer than her original sedative. “We can’t dawdle. I have no idea how long he’ll be asleep.”

Tonya handed her the frames. “Days, poor guy.”

“He’s done something to himself so sleep spells don’t take.” The spray, a mix of cayenne, poppy and other herbs, could knock out a whole pack of fractious beasts. It had a wider range than spell pods, which required aim instead of simply depressing a button.

“Not surprised. He’s smart as hell,” Tonya said.

Katie used the needle in her glasses to ping the simple lock of the handcuffs. She scuttled out of the bed. Pants…there. Her shirt was ruined. From Marcus’s drawer,she liberated a top that hung on her like a sack dress.

Tonya watched her with amusement and concern.

“We, um.” Katie’s cheeks burned. “He was trying to convince me to, um…”

“Umm,” Tonya said salaciously. “Are you sure about this? You should consider the benefits of getting this sex thing out of your system. Marcus is ideal, and it’s obvious he has the hots for you.”

“He kidnapped me and threatened to slit my throat.”

“You knew he wouldn’t hurt you. You loved every minute of it.”

Katie rubbed her forehead. “There are more important things at stake than my love life. How did you find me?”

“Had to call a guy about a dog,” Tonya said gruffly. Her lips pinched with annoyance. “We’ll pay for it soon enough.”

Katie would get the details of that, she was sure, but right now they had a duty. “Did you bring the poppy memory blend?”

Her friend sighed. “You’re a wet blanket to end all wet blankets.” But she’d already agreed with the wisdom of wiping Marcus once. “Zhang Li brought it. Stubborn old man. If you insist on doing this, I suppose I have to fetch him.”

* * *

“Scrub your hands,” Katie barked at her father and Tonya as soon as they returned to the trailer. “Give me the poppy mix. We don’t have much time.”

Katie heard the water in the sink gush. She dropped to her knees at Marcus’s side. His face didn’t have that peaceful, relaxed expression like when he’d been faking sleep. His floors—his whole trailer—were neat as a pin, but Marcus himself was a mess.

She wrestled his pepper-sprayed shirt over his head and ran a wet washcloth over his face. Mixes that weren’t oil-based washed away easier. She wiped his neck and hair too, then each finger on his elegant hands, trying not to think how recently one of them had been between her legs. She traded the cloth for another and touched up his arms. The cayenne mix wouldn’t skew the wipe, but it might complicate it.

She didn’t want to do this spell. Didn’t want to risk a life wipe with three witches. But they had to try. Marcus’s discovery of them could get them all killed. Lars would never rest until she was dead—until they were all dead.

Marcus might have honest chi and captivating fingers, but he couldn’t control the future. The longer Katie let him coax her, the more she’d want to believe in his cause.

She couldn’t afford causes. She had a family to protect.

“Come on, come on.” She motioned for the other two to join her. Not even Dad argued, though he muttered under his breath about arthritis as he knelt beside the prone man. “Don’t stop me if it feels like I’m pulling out your fingernails. The power drain’s going to hurt.” It wouldn’t be easy struggling through the next couple days on empty, but they were out of options.

Marcus hadn’t left them any—not any reasonable ones. Avoiding tomorrow’s patrol was one thing. Avoiding the keepers was another. Marcus had been deliberately vague, but how close on his muscular, well-shaped tail was their mutual enemy?

“You make it sound lovely,” Tonya said. Neither she nor Dad hesitated to give Katie full access to their reserves. She could sense them opening up to her.

She’d be the focal, the spell wielded by her. She’d be the one doing this to Marcus, who seemed to be a wolf who didn’t deserve it.

He was different. She wished she could trust him. Keep him. And other things. To him, she’d said yes and would say it again given half the chance.

No. She couldn’t think like that. Not safe, not safe at all.

Katie unceremoniously dumped the baggie’s contents on Marcus’s bare chest. They all stuck their hands in the mixture, fingertips touching. Dad grumbled. The cayenne was a hot burn on her skin.

“Here goes.” No time for delicacy. Katie opened up and poured all the energy inside her into Marcus.

The considerable torrent she mustered ripped the magic out of her father and Tonya like a tornado splintering a barn. Tonya squawked. Dad cussed some more. The three of them had never joined in a spell this urgent. Katie hoped they wouldn’t pass out, but she’d need everything they possessed for a chance of making this work.

She centered on the poppy mixture, forcing magic through the organic particles and crowbarring open Marcus’s spirit. The world blanked out, and she was inside him.

He didn’t want her here. She knew that. But they never did.

His sense of self and his memories leaped into being around her, an endless, many-dimensioned jigsaw of experiences and sensations, thoughts and impressions. As far as she could see, his life lay before her, hazed by a faint layer of poppy. She didn’t like going in with him asleep, but she’d have to compensate.

Katie took threads of power and dove. She soon remembered the routine, searching out the pieces of Marcus’s life that needed to be tweaked. She couldn’t interpret them like pictures or videos. She had to sense them. Find the parts of him that were witch and erase them.

Take his life away from him.

There. And there. Those parts. Katie nudged him, rearranging his substance. Changing his memories to keep witches hidden. It had never before seemed so unethical. Every slice of his essence she manipulated felt like a hook in her stomach, gutting her with wrongness. Her ears rang as she drained herself too quickly.

The skeins of power thinned…wisps in her grasp. This shouldn’t be happening so soon! She should have added more cayenne. She had to have more magic. But where?

Could she get it from him? Desperate, she probed his essence, seeking the magic he claimed was no different than hers. The force that allowed him to change from wolf to man.

There it was, the lattice. Instead of a soft wellspring and thousands of connections like a witch had, it was a bright heart with a single channel. As if he could only work one spell.

Why had she never noticed this inside a wolf before?

Because she’d never looked for a wolf’s lattice. Because she’d never cared.

Katie wavered. Pieces of Marcus began to snap back into their original positions. She reached desperately for his power, only to be smacked viciously out of the lattice, rubber whips stinging every inch of her skin. She was buffeted to one side, then the other, losing more and more of the spell. She tried desperately to control the magic, Marcus’s memories, but she simply didn’t have enough of a foundation to do this.

Three people and a pile of cayenne couldn’t do this.

She delved inside herself further than she ever had before and came up short.

Story of her life.

Her inadequate push rebounded off him as if he were convex. It smashed into Katie…and ricocheted off her in turn.

Harmful magic couldn’t affect a convex witch. But it had to go somewhere. It was going somewhere.

That was Katie’s last, terrified realization before she blacked out.

* * *

“Wake up.” A hand patted her cheek. “Katie.”

Pain shot from temple to temple like a shish kebab. Katie whimpered as she became conscious. She had a magic hangover the size of a tractor-trailer, and she’d rather sleep this shit off. “Owwwww.”

“What’s wrong with the girl, Doc?” her father asked. “Is she sick?”

“Are you okay, Ba?” The last thing she remembered was the unfinished wipe bouncing off her. “How’s Tonya?”

“Out here,” Tonya called happily. Why couldn’t Katie open her eyes? “That’s me, right?”

An ominous suspicion joined the skewer of pain in her head. She grasped the hand near her face and levered herself to her side, gritting her teeth. She appeared to be on a bed instead of the floor. Her body ached like elephants had used her as a trampoline. Her magical reserves were completely nonexistent. She was amazed she was conscious.

Regretting it as soon as she did it, Katie let Dad help her sit up and opened her eyes.

Surprise. Dad wasn’t holding her. It was Marcus, and he looked really fucking pissed.

“She’s not dead.” Dad, at the foot of Marcus’s bed, nodded with satisfaction. “Good. What happened to you, girl? Were you in the accident?”

“What do you mean?” Katie, who was still, thankfully, wearing her glasses, stared past Marcus’s grim expression to her father. “You don’t remember?”

“Should I?” Dad asked warily.

“You experienced a significant misfire when you attempted your ill-advised stunt,” Marcus informed her pleasantly. He’d donned a blue dress shirt at some point.

She pressed a hand to her roiling stomach. “What happened?”

An attractive, fortyish blond woman reentered the trailer, tying a knot in her oversized shirt. It was Tonya…minus her pants, one hundred pounds and a decade.

“Hi there,” she said cheerfully, pausing for a big yawn. “Is this your motor home? I wanted to thank you for the use of it. I seem to have, ah, forgotten what I’m doing here.” She lifted her hands in resignation. “Your wonderful boyfriend is going to take us to the hospital as soon as we get you mobile.”

Katie exchanged a horrified glance with Marcus. She was horrified; he was furious. It had nothing to do with Tonya’s assumption of their involvement. “What about my father? How’s he?”

“The same,” Marcus answered in a low voice.

“I’m not your dad, kid.” Her father’s appearance, while haggard, hadn’t changed like Tonya’s had. Obviously Katie had been right that Tonya had been masked the whole time they’d known her.

“How much of them is missing?” she asked.

If it took a coven to poppy someone, it took two covens to restore memories…when they could be restored. The keeper council rarely had reason to revert wipes. Since this hadn’t been intentional, were the losses temporary?

“You took their witch. You took their lives.” Marcus’s smile wasn’t kind. “You won’t fool me again. You’re a devil, like the keepers said.”

Katie wanted to close her eyes, roll over and pretend this was a bad dream. Wake up without the pain and nausea and relive today, minus…Marcus. She was devastated. Completely empty. She had no defenses, no offenses, no answers, no ideas, no anything. “You’d have done the same thing in my position.”

“You’re wrong. I’ve never been foolhardy enough to try that with three practitioners and some cayenne. You brought this on yourself, Chang Cai.”

“Thought her name was Katie,” Dad said. “Is Chang Cai her Chinese name?”

Tonya looked at Dad. “You’re Chinese.”

“I am not,” he argued, thumping his cane. His nature seemed intact, which wasn’t going to help anyone during this crisis.

“You lost your memories too, Li,” Tonya said sympathetically. “Dr. Marcus says we were in some kind of accident that affected us nemo…nero…”

“Neurologically,” Marcus offered. “That’s my professional opinion. I believe it was a gas leak. You’re in no further danger.”

“Whatever it was, it plumb wore me out.” Whatever Marcus had told Tonya and Dad, it wasn’t freaking them out like most people would be upon being stricken with amnesia. “Anyway, Li, you might want to check the mirror.”

Dad hobbled into the tiny bathroom and cursed. “Oh, hell. I’m old.”

“The one thing I don’t understand is why my clothes don’t fit.” Tonya’s nature seemed intact as well as Dad’s. She eyed Marcus’s backside appreciatively as he bent over Katie. “My pants wouldn’t stay up. Chang Cai, hon, do you mind if I borrow some clothes? I don’t want to go to the hospital in nothing but this shirt.”

“It’s Katie. And it’s not my trailer. I don’t have any clothes here.” She shut her eyes and flopped down, unwilling to face Marcus’s censure or Tonya’s and her father’s blankness.

“I guess my shirt covers everything important. Lord, am I tired. I need coffee.”

A hot lump blocked Katie’s throat. Marcus’s silent, condemning presence only drove it home. They were in deep shit, and it was all her fault.

What was she going to do? She had no magic. As empty as she was, it wouldn’t be restored for days. She couldn’t call on a single coven to help with the memory loss, much less two. What witches would ever help Chang Cai, supposedly deceased former keeper and convex alpha?