Found (Book One of the Castle Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel (12 page)

The strain of keeping still and silent made her even more aware of her body, and she knew that he was playing with her. Every time he brushed her clitoris, he pulled back and returned to stroking her, getting her wetter and even more frantic.

“Please,” she breathed. “More please.”

Languidly, his fingers found her clit and began stroking it with the rhythm that he knew she craved. Under the blanket, her hand landed on his wrist to make sure that he had no thoughts of pulling away or teasing her more.

Her body stiffened, and she ground her teeth together. She was used to being able to move, to twist, to rock against him, and right now, she could do none of that. Instead, all she could do was lie as still as she could and keep her eyes shut.

His fingers continued their relentless rhythm, stroking her until her whole body was trembling. She felt her climax start to roar through her, and the way she was tensed made it even more intense. It was inevitable that she would orgasm, and she let the sensations overtake her.

She was trembling and shaking, and she was so needy she could have cried. Instead, she bit the inside of her cheek to hold herself together. When the full force of the climax struck her, all she did was breathe a little faster and a little harder.

Kieran’s hand stilled on her body, holding her together, and when she shifted, he pulled it back.

“I think I need a nap,” she whispered, and she heard Kieran laugh.

• • • • •

Kieran smiled at Hailey’s sleeping face. She was still a little flushed, and her mouth was a delicate shade of pink that made him ache to kiss it, but she needed her rest. He could have watched her for the rest of the flight, but then his phone beeped at him insistently.

He frowned, flicking it open. He read the message, and then he read it again. He could feel something breaking inside himself, but he put it away. He could deal with it later, if there was a later. Kieran put his phone away, and he gave into his temptation. He leaned over and gave Hailey a soft, full kiss on the lips. She stirred a little, smiling at him.

“What’s the matter?” she whispered.

“Nothing at all,” he lied. “I just wanted to kiss you.”

FROM NEW YORK, they took a flight to Casper Airport in central Wyoming, and when they made landfall, it was almost evening.

Hailey had to take the time to collect a very irritated Merit from the baggage handlers, and when she returned to Kieran, she linked her arm through his, smiling up at him.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Are you?” Hailey teased. “You look like death.”

He didn’t smile at her jibe. Instead, he looked more distant than ever, and he shook his head.

“Hailey, you’ll be going to the coven alone.”

Hailey felt her stomach sink. Surely she had misheard, or somehow misunderstood.

“What?”

Kieran took a deep breath. “You’ll be going to the coven alone.”

Hearing it again didn’t help. In fact, it had the opposite effect. She swallowed hard against a rising tide of panic.

“I don’t understand. So you’ll be following me?”

“No.”

Merit picked up on her distress and ruffled her wings nervously in the cage. Hailey took the distraction to calm her familiar, hoping it would calm her nerves, but it didn’t. Her heart fluttered uncontrollably.

“Kieran, what are you talking about?”

He shook his head. When she laid her hand on his forearm, she was shocked to realize he was shaking.

“I can’t go on with you. You’ll be going on to the coven alone.”

“But…but you told me–”

“That can’t happen.”

She gasped. His voice was like a slap. She took a step back, staring up at him with dismay.

“Kieran…”

“Hailey, this is the way things have to be. I’ll stay with you until the coven’s representative comes to find you, and then I’m leaving on a different transport.”

Hailey tried to make sense of his words, but she couldn’t. There was no way that the man who had treated her so tenderly, so lovingly over the last few days could abandon her like this. She shook her head. How did this make sense?

“What are you doing? Why are you doing this?”

He was silent, but she grasped his arm, desperate to understand.

“Did you lie to me all this time?” she whispered. “Did you do all this to get me to Wyoming?”

He was still and silent. Numbly she let go of his arm.

“Hailey–”

“Don’t,” she said, her voice soft but broken. Her stomach flip-flopped, and she clutched the fabric there. “Please, don’t. Whatever games you wanted to play, they’re over now, aren’t they? I’m here now.”

Kieran sucked in a sharp breath at her words. They wounded him, and she knew that they weren’t true, but he didn’t do anything to contradict them.

“I am sorry.”

She waited but there was nothing else.

“So is that all you have to say to me?”

“It’s all I can say to you, yes. Hailey, I wish I could go on with you, but I can’t.”

“And you can’t tell me why.”

His silence was all the answer she got.

Hailey let the reality of the situation sink into her body, let it chill her bones and numb her. It was shock of a kind, not so dissimilar from when the old Templar had burned her. The wound was healing well, but the medic from the Angioli coven told her that there would always be a scar. There would always be a scar from this as well.

“Do we have anything else to say to each other?” she asked.

She sounded formal even to her own ears.

As she stared at the ground, unable to meet his gaze, the silence stretched between them.

“We don’t,” Kieran finally said. “Goodbye, Hailey.”

She didn’t have anything to say to him. She couldn’t find words at all. What did you say to a man who, only minutes ago, you loved? Who you were convinced loved you?
 

After a moment, he turned and left.

By the time she looked up, her vision blurred by tears, he was lost in the crowd. For several long seconds, Hailey was convinced he was coming back. She knew the explanation would come spilling out. He would tell her what was wrong. He would at least come back to kiss her. He would tell her that he loved her. And though she waited, none of those things happened.

She pressed a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks.

Then the crowd jostled her, and Merit nibbled on her fingers from inside the cage. She opened her eyes. The world was still standing. The only thing that was different was that Kieran was gone––and she was hollow.

She found her way to one of the benches, suddenly aware that she had no idea what came next. She didn’t know how to recognize someone from the Wyoming coven; she didn’t even know where they were going exactly. She had the number to get in contact with the Angioli coven again, but she couldn’t even muster up the energy to do that.

Hailey might have sat on that bench for hours if someone hadn’t coughed delicately.

She turned her head, and looked up and up.

The woman who stood by her side was tall and rangy. She looked big-boned and as strong as a mare, her smile bright and warm. She was dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans. She tilted her head at Hailey inquisitively.

“Are you Hailey Devereaux?” she asked, and when Hailey nodded, the woman smiled even more broadly.

“I’m Julie Ashbrook, and I’m from the Castle. I’m here to take you on the last leg of your round the world trip.”

Hailey regarded the woman warily. She wanted to trust her, but she felt so raw that she wasn’t sure she could trust much of anything.

“I’m sorry, no one told me who I was meeting…”

“And you’d rather not wander off with someone who’s going to hand you over to the newest Templar in town. I got you. Here, let me show you.”

Julie looked around cautiously, and showed Hailey the three clear glass marbles she held in her hand. As Hailey watched, they lifted from the woman’s palm and wove an intricate dance before dropping down again.

“Once we get out of town, I can show you something really special, but that’ll do for now. Is that good enough?”

Hailey nodded, and picked up Merit’s cage, allowing Julie to grab her bag.

“How did you know who I was?”

“Owl. Not everyone coming through Casper is going to be carrying a snowy owl, you know? Though I was also looking for a big guy from the Magus Corps too. Did he get lost or something?”

Hailey flinched.

“I don’t know. He said he had to leave.”

If Julie thought that was strange, she didn’t mention it. Instead, she got Hailey into the tiny plane on the private runway while maintaining a stream of chatter that was all about Wyoming and her flight experience.

Hailey’s grief over the loss of Kieran didn’t diminish, but she did try to set it aside to concentrate on what the woman was saying.

“I’ve lived with a few covens before,” Hailey offered. “The last one was even in the mountains.”

“Oh sweetie, you might have lived in the mountains, but there’s no place like the Castle. You’ll see.”

The plane was small enough that they could easily converse as Julie flew it, and Hailey watched in awe as the woman handled the talk with the tower and got them into the air.

It was sunset, and even in the midst of her anger and her sorrow, Hailey’s breath was taken away by the scope of the Wyoming sky. The blue was being overtaken by orange and scarlet, and it painted the mountains with gold. She held her breath as the little plane lofted easily over the peaks. They had left the scanty towns behind, and there was nothing beneath them but wilderness. Then she put the plane in a steep bank. She pointed out Hailey’s window.

“There it is.”

Nestled firmly on the slope of one peak, and sheltered by another, was what looked like a French castle. It was low and sprawling, larger by far than the Angioli monastery, and the setting sun gilded it, giving it a fairytale air.

“That’s the Castle,” Julie said with obvious pride. “Welcome home.”

The words hurt in a way that Hailey had never felt before, and amidst the grief she felt at Kieran’s absence, something else was waking up.

“Welcome home,” she echoed, and wondered what came next.

• • • • •

Hailey’s story continues in ABANDONED: Castle Coven Book Two, available now.

For a sneak peak, turn the page.

Excerpt:

ABANDONED

Castle Coven Book Two

“Hailey?” Piers said quietly.

She looked at him, still thinking of Kieran, but also her new place in the world. Piers seemed to sense that she was making a decision. He was as still as a statue, and she knew that he had centuries of practice with patience. He could not have been an impatient man and built the Castle. He knew that some things must never be rushed if they were to happen appropriately at all.
 

Moving as slowly as a glacier, she reached her hand out, letting it graze his cheekbone. He did not flinch. Instead, he only leaned slightly into her hand, encouraging her to touch him even more. Slowly, she smoothed the ball of her thumb across his cheek, sliding it down to his generous mouth.
 

She was unsurprised when his tongue flicked out and lapped at it. She shivered at the warmth and the wetness of it. After a moment, she slid her thumb into his mouth, a hot, velvet heaven. When she pulled back, he took her hand in his and kissed it gallantly and chastely on her fingertips.

“I want to know what you’re thinking,” he said.

“I should think it was obvious,” Hailey replied, feeling slightly crushed.

Her experience with men wasn’t extensive, but she thought she had made her intentions very clear.

“I need to know that this isn’t some kind of thank you,” he said bluntly. “Regardless of what you feel about the Castle, I need you to understand that you have a place here. You don’t have to ‘earn’ it with me.”

Hailey blushed hotly.

“No, that’s not what I think!”

“Good.” Piers’s smile was bright. “I also need to know what you want from me. I’m attracted to you. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now. You’re a lovely woman. I want to know what you need from me.”

That caught Hailey by surprise. She felt awkward speaking of such things. But he gazed earnestly at her, and waited for an answer.

“I want pleasure,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “This place, this night with you. Inside these walls, I want whatever you can give me.”

Piers made a noise that was somewhere between a groan and a hiss. She watched his hands fist and then loosen again.

“Do you know what you do to me when you say things like that?” he asked her softly.

There was a naked yearning in his voice. Hailey felt a heat kindle inside her to know that she had been the one to cause it.

“I can guess.”

“It makes me want you. It makes me want you bare and squirming. It makes me want to lay you down and give you all the pleasure that you can take. After that, I want to give you even more.”

Hailey was caught up in the rhythm of his words. She knew her mouth was open, that she was staring wide-eyed at him.

“Yes,” was all she could think to say. “Yes, Piers, yes.”

It was the last bit of permission he needed. He cupped her face in his hands and held her still as he rained kisses on her upturned face. Her eyes fluttered closed as he kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, and her chin. Then he passed his lips over hers, once, twice and again. The tender touch woke her body like a storm passing over the prairie. She opened her mouth and drew his tongue into it, sucking on it gently before letting go. In a perfect, wild moment, she wondered what it would be like to suck on his cock the same way, to feel it jump in her mouth and to know that she was bringing him so much pleasure.

“I don’t think you need this anymore.”

Piers’s fingers had found the pull of her hoodie zipper.

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