Claimed (Book Four of the Castle Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel (6 page)

Piers’s voice was calm. There was nothing that she could do to dissuade him, so she turned to Kieran.

“Are you going to let him come along?”
 

Kieran’s smile was twisted.

“I’m not actually sure that I can stop him. Also, I’m going to point out that if this mission was serious enough that I was willing to endanger you, I’m certainly not going to say no to more firepower, no matter what form it takes.”

There were no further arguments that Hailey could make, so she followed the two of them out of the Castle. A short ways into the forest was a small plane ably hidden underneath a camouflage tarp. When Kieran stripped it away, she and Piers got on board. As Kieran started his pre-flight checks, she leaned closer to Piers.
 

“Why are you here?” she asked softly. “The Castle means the world to you.”

Piers’s laugh was soft. He reached out to touch her face gently, just once.

“The Castle might be my world, but I have found that you are my heart. I can’t be in two places at once, but I know where I need to be most. I created the Castle to be a defense in its own right. I might be the coven master here, but I have always looked ahead to a time when I might be out of the picture. The Castle will survive even if I do not.”

The idea of Piers dying was a sobering one to her. Her heart clenched with fear. When she glanced at Kieran’s broad back in the cockpit in front of them, she felt the same way. She wondered if Piers felt the same thing when he looked at her, if Kieran did as well.
 

We will come back from this,
she thought firmly to herself.
We will fly as Liona’s arrow did, we will find our targets, and then we will find our way home.
 

 
The plane began its slow ascent into the sky. Hailey looked out the small window just in time to see the Castle fall away. It was the first home that she had ever known. She wondered briefly whether she would ever be able to see it again.
 

Next to her, Piers took her hand gently, bringing it to his lips for a kiss.
 

“It’ll be fine, and so will we.”

Settling in for the flight, she tried to believe him.

LESS THAN A day later, Hailey was on the other side of the world. They had taken a commercial flight from the United States to Italy, but from there, they had found a taciturn man with a small plane to take them further.

“There’s a Magus Corps safe house that we can use to find our feet,” Kieran said. “It’s as close as you can get to the place we are heading. From there, we can strike into their territory on foot.”

“Will we see Cavanaugh there?” Hailey had wondered. Cavanaugh was Kieran’s wolf familiar. It felt almost strange to see Kieran without his companion.
 

Kieran had shaken his head.

“As a matter of fact, I left him at the Castle. It’s a place that’s close enough to his home, and if I don’t come back, I know he’ll thrive.”
 

That was all that Kieran had had to say about the matter, but Hailey could read a world there. She had left Merit in Wyoming for much the same reason.
 

There was very much a sense that they might not come back from their mission, though if Piers or Kieran’s thoughts ran along the same lines that hers did, they did not reveal it.

The safe house that Kieran led them to was only a simple cabin in the forest. The plane had dropped them off with supplies for a few days, but when they entered the cabin, it hardly seemed warmer than the winds outside.

“I’ll get the generator started,” Kieran volunteered, heading outside again.

While he was gone, Hailey looked around the cabin with her flashlight. It was a surprisingly cozy place, with a few colorful quilts thrown over the couch and a shelf of paperback books in a variety of languages.
 

“Do you regret coming with me?” she asked softly.

Piers chuckled.

“If you think I’m going to be driven from your side by a few mildewed books and a cold cabin, you don’t think enough of me. I have faith that things will be fine. I also don’t disagree with you on why you are here.”

Hailey looked at him with curiosity before posing her question.

“You’ve…had very little good to say about the Magus Corps since I’ve known you. Why the change of heart?”
 

“The Magus Corps as an institution makes me nervous. They have had a lot of unquestioned power for a long time, and they have not always used it wisely. On the other hand, there have been a number of Magus Corps officers that I have cared for a great deal, even loved. You met Stephan when you first came to the Castle, the inventor? He is a fine person, one that I wish would leave the Corps and come to the Castle. If it were him that was lost, I would want to come find him. No one deserves to be lost to the Templars, not when there is a chance that I can help win them free.”

“You sound a little like Liona when you speak of such things. She told me that the covens were designed to protect people, and so was the Magus Corps. Two different organizations with the exact same goals.”

Piers smiled wryly at her.

“That being said, I would like to point out that I would far rather enjoy your company in your quarters or mine back at the Castle. This place feels a little like a set from a horror movie.”

“Oh? Are you worried that some masked killer is going to come chase us around?”
 

Hailey sidled up to Piers, wrapping her arm around his waist. To her delight, he scooped her up in his arms, holding her close. She was light in his arms, but she still wrapped her legs around his waist for stability.
 

“Fear is an amazing aphrodisiac,” she whispered. “Perhaps I wouldn’t mind being chased around if that meant that I could collapse in your arms, hmm?”
 

Piers was going to reply when two things happened at once. The generator kicked on, bringing the lights up, and the door behind them opened to reveal Kieran in the doorway.
 

 
Hailey had a moment to remember how large he was, how he could fill up the room. After a frozen moment, however, he merely closed the door behind him.

“Lights on,” he said gruffly. “Heat should follow soon. I want to leave at first light, so we should likely eat and rest.”
 

 
He walked past them to pick up his bag, and then he walked up the stairs, where there was a bathroom and a bedroom.
 

Hailey blushed guiltily, turning to Piers, who had a strange expression on his face.

“That was awkward to say the least,” she muttered.

“You know, I don’t know about that.”

“What do you mean, Piers?”
 

“Nothing right this moment, but I do wonder what an aura reader or a mind reader would have made of your major just then.”
 

Dinner consisted of tins hastily heated up over the stove. It was poor fare, but all three of them ate like they weren’t sure when they were next going to see food at all. Hailey watched Piers and Kieran. Piers was at his ease, though perhaps uncharacteristically quiet. Kieran was as silent as a stone. There was something lost and hurt about him. Despite what lay between them, it hurt her to see it. Whoever he was, no matter how tangled his loyalties, she didn’t think she could stand to see him look like that.

 
“Tomorrow we are going to head north into the forest,” Kieran said after they had cleaned up. “Within half a day, perhaps a little more, we will be in the territory where the last officer was lost. He had heard talk of strange happenings out in this region, and he went to investigate.”

“Strange happenings, what does that mean?” asked Piers with a frown.
 

“According to his report, lights above the trees, things that were like elk walking on their hind legs, shadows that were not cast by anything people could see. He came to investigate, wondering if there was a renegade witch or warlock in the region, or perhaps even a lost coven. He never came back.”
 

Hailey shivered, making Kieran glance at her.

“If you want to leave, that is still possible. You are not sworn to the Magus Corps, and you have no reason to follow orders from me.”

Hailey tilted her chin up defiantly.
 

“I have no intention of leaving this mission. Unless you can look me in the eye and tell me that you think I will hamper you or that I will hurt your chances for success, then I am staying.”

Kieran looked at her for a long moment. Finally, he smiled, a slightly rueful thing.

“If I thought that you would slow me down, either of you, I would never have brought you. Our chances for success go up if you are both here. Even I know that. I just…”

“Don’t want to see her harmed.”
 

Hailey jumped a little when Piers spoke. There was an understanding there that eluded her. For a long moment, both men looked at each other across the simple wooden table. There was no anger or animosity there. Instead, there was the beginning of something that she couldn’t quite name.
 

Kieran nodded.
 

 
“The last thing in the world I want is to see her harmed. It…it is something I will prevent at all costs, but I know what is needed and what might happen out there. I can offer no guarantees, and for that I apologize to you both.”

“Life offers no guarantees,” Hailey said firmly. “All I need to know is that I am here, and here is where I want to be. With you. With both of you.”

Kieran looked a little startled at the emphasis of her words. There was something shuttered about him again. He stood and clear the table settings away.

“I want to be moving at first light. There is one bedroom upstairs, and the bed should suit the pair of you.”

Did she imagine the faint twitch at his temple? The black eye that Piers had presumably given him was still bright, still livid.
 

“What about you?” she asked. Her voice came out a little huskier than she thought it would.

“I can make a perfectly serviceable bed for myself down here. Good night.”

Kieran spoke with a finality that was meant to end the discussion. Feeling somewhat defeated, Hailey washed up and followed Piers to the small bedroom above.

The bed was startlingly large. There were sheets and blankets in the chest at the foot of the bed. As they made up the bed together, Hailey caught Piers watching her speculatively.
 

“What are you looking at?” she asked warily.
 

Piers shook his head.

“Just thinking about the things that you can learn during the course of a life as long as mine. That’s all.”

“And what do you think that would be?”

“That sometimes, the things that we want can be ours if only we ask for them.”

She watched him with suspicion.
 

“So I should ask?”
 

“It’s usually the best course. Otherwise, no one will know what it is you want.”

Hailey bit her lip. It was right there, waiting for her to speak it, but still she hesitated.

“Who won the fight that the two of you had?” she asked instead.
 

Piers shrugged.

“It wasn’t a fight, really,” he said, temporizing. “It was much closer to being a discussion that was punctuated by blows.”

“Uh-huh. And who punctuated the hardest?”

“I would have to say that it was him. I did get in a few good ones though.”

“Yes, I saw his eye.” Hailey hesitated, and then she finally said what they both had been thinking the entire time.

“I don’t want Kieran to sleep alone tonight,” she said finally. “I want him to come to our bed. Is that possible?”
 

Piers’s face betrayed not a moment of anger or upset. Instead, he seemed calm, as if he fielded such requests all the time.
 

“What would you want him to do in this great big bed of ours, Hailey?”

Hailey blushed at the pictures that danced through her mind for a moment. Then she straightened, shaking her head.

“I don’t care. I want to do what he wants. If all he wants to do is to sleep, that’s fine. If he wants to…to make love with us, I want that too. Is that what you want?”
 

Piers thought for a moment. Then he nodded.

“He has a piece of you, Hailey. That is something that I have known for quite some time. It doesn’t bother me, exactly, but I would prefer you whole and happy. He has your best interests, your safety and your care as his first priority, and that is what I needed to know. If you want to bring him to our bed, I would welcome him.”
 

Hailey thought for a moment, and then she nodded.
 

“That’s what I want. I want to bring him up here with us.”

“Then you should go get him before it gets too late, shouldn’t you?”
 

Her heart pounding, Hailey turned towards the door.

“You don’t need clothes to go get him, do you, Hailey?”

Hailey shivered. It was Piers’s secret voice, the one that he used to command her when they were intimate. It immediately sent a bolt of subtle lightning through her body, making her quiver with desire.

Without saying a word, she slid out of her clothes, folding them and setting them aside. When she stood naked, she presented herself to Piers, who nodded thoughtfully.
 

She thought he would kiss her, but instead, he only ran his hands over her shoulders and her arms, cupping her breasts momentarily before releasing her.

“You are a difficult woman to resist at any point, my love. Like this, you are completely compelling. Go. Bring your prize to bed.”
 

He dropped a kiss on the delicate shell of her ear.
 

Shaking just a little, she walked out of their bedroom and down the stairs. It was almost completely dark in the house, but her memory was good. She managed to make it down the stairs without bumping into anything.