My Forbidden Desire (20 page)

She looked. And blinked. Then squinted and took a closer look. Her eyes weren’t the familiar brown she saw every day. Her irises were darker, deeper, almost gold. “Whoa,” she whispered. She put a hand on the wall by the mirror and hung her head, shaking it as if the motion would toss out the color and put everything back to normal. Slowly she opened her eyes. She looked to her right. He hadn’t found black toilet paper. She had no trouble distinguishing the toilet paper from the wall. Everything else blended in. She looked in the mirror again. Her eyes were still gold instead of brown. She raised her gaze and saw Xia’s face reflected in the mirror.

Not that it mattered. His eyes weren’t normal, either, but that wasn’t any different. His eyes had never been normal. “Now what?” she asked.

He scooted closer to her, peering at her eyes in the mirror. “Can you pull?”

She turned around, and they were so close they were practically touching. “I don’t know.”

“Try.” He slipped a finger under the leather thong around her neck and lifted up. Not much, but enough to make her anxious. He let go, and she went back to feeling normal. “Can you?”

She tried to access her magic. But, as usual, there was nothing there. “No,” she said. “I can almost never pull on purpose. It’s mostly been accidental. You know, premonitions. Or else stuff that happens that I never expected.”

“Damn,” he whispered. She shrugged in response. Xia dug into his pocket. “Here.” He gave her another pill, and this time she dry swallowed. The taste wasn’t nearly so bad that way.

“What if this doesn’t work? This will suck if I get addicted to this crap for nothing.”

Xia put a hand to her cheek, and Alexandrine went still. His touch electrified her. “It’s going to work. I can feel your magic, Alexandrine, and it’s seriously turning me on. So believe it, it’s working, baby.”

“Then why can’t I do anything?” She knew she’d let her frustration echo in her voice, because his hand smoothed her cheek. “I’m a failure at this. I always have been.”

“You’re not. The mages who survive learning to use their magic were raised knowing what they are. They live it. Breathe it. They study and practice for years before they go out in the world.”

Her head throbbed, and she rubbed her forehead to ease the tension. Didn’t do any good at all. Her vision was going, too. The corner behind Xia refused to register in her head as a corner.

He slid his fingers up to her forehead and pressed gently. “You grow up to kill monsters like me.”

She pressed her spine against the wall next to the vanity, with her hands trapped between the wall and the curve of her backbone. He looked away, and her eyes were really doing funny things, because his profile vanished. He vanished. He turned his gaze back on her, and there he was. Big as life. She brought up her hands and pushed him away.

“I’m not a killer.” Her stomach went all jumpy. “I’ve never killed anyone, and I’m not about to start now.” She stumbled past him, but the room disappeared. Everywhere she looked she saw black, yet at the periphery of her vision, rainbows arced off angles that weren’t there when she looked. Her brain couldn’t parse out what she was seeing and assemble the information into an image she recognized. “What’s happening to me?”

Xia’s voice in her ear was the only thing that made sense to her. “I’ve got you.” His arms anchored her in the room. “It’s all right. Be calm, and in a minute everything will settle down. I promise.”

“Is this going to go away?” Her stomach stopped twitching and got tight and queasy.

“Yes.”

He put a hand on her shoulder and guided her forward. At least she thought it was forward. The lines of the room tilted off in crazy directions. Everywhere she looked she saw brilliant color. Some of the colors she’d never seen before in her life.

“Sit,” Xia said.

She did and recognized the brighter orange of the sofa. They were back in the living room, then.

“Close your eyes.” She did, and Xia’s voice continued. “Concentrate on something you like. Puppies. Or unicorns or whatever girly crap turns you on. Turn off the panic and concentrate on your magic.”

She thought about Xia in the shower. Before everything went crazy. When Alexandrine opened her eyes, there was Xia, sitting beside her. Next to the fireplace. In his perfectly normal living room. No rainbows. No walls that refused to meet at right angles. “Are we going to do it?” she asked. “The ritual, I mean. Not the hot monkey sex.”

“Soon,” he said. “Focus like that if you start to lose it again, and you’ll be fine.”

“What the hell is in that crap you gave me? And how come you’re not bouncing off the walls, too?”

“I’m not like you.”

“Vive la difference,” she whispered.

“Lie back. Yeah, like that. With your head relaxed.” He shifted closer to her and leaned over her. She got a full-on dose of his neon eyes when she opened her eyes. He put his fingers on either side of her face and massaged her temples.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s heaven.”

“Just relax. Think about puppies and fluffy bunnies.” She rolled her eyes. His fingers were magic. She found herself relaxing in spite of herself. “Feeling better?”

“Yes.” Her thoughts expanded out, and gradually she became aware of Xia in a different way. Not just his physical presence, but also his mental presence. She could touch his mind if she wanted to. What an odd sensation. To think you could get inside someone’s head. She knew that happened—heck, it had happened to her. But to think that sort of thing could be deliberate gave her the chills. His fingers moved from her temples to the sides of her head, rubbing circles in her scalp. Heaven. She’d seen the man naked. Touched him. All six-foot-and-something inches of him. An awesome body. What would it be like to make love with him? His hands had been on her, so she had a clue that he’d put her in orbit. Xia stopped massaging her head. “Don’t stop. That feels divine.”

“This is getting dangerous,” he said. He stood and, grabbing her hand, got them both to the rug in front of the fireplace. The earthy smell was stronger here, so close to the brazier. She was tempted to inhale and hold her breath in case the stuff worked like weed.

Lazily, she opened her eyes. Her eyes met his, and it was like free-falling and landing someplace alien. She wasn’t sure what happened, but whatever it was, she got a dose of Xia so intense she felt like she was inside his thoughts. “Wild,” she said.

He moved just his head. Oh, great. His eyes were doing that glowing blue look again. He tossed something else into the shimmering oil and leaned in to take a deep breath. He gestured for her to do the same, but she was already on her way. In close, the scent of herbs was sharp and intense. And then the lights went out. The only illumination came from the fireplace. Shadows flickered on the floor and on the planes of Xia’s face. Hers, too, she supposed. Xia wasn’t startled by the power outage. But, then, nothing seemed to frighten him.

“What did you do with the lights?”

“Concentrate, would you?”

“On what?”

“Whatever you want. Just pick something and concentrate on it.”

“Fine.” She chose the little brass bowl, because she’d always wanted a bowl like that, but all the ones she saw were too expensive. Several minutes passed in the dim light. The scent of the herbs grew sharper and took on a bitter undertone. She was hideously aware of Xia beside her, sitting with his hands on his thighs, his head bowed. Like he was praying.

Her mind didn’t feel connected to her body anymore. Yes, the copa was definitely having an effect on her. She took a breath and oddly caught a whiff of heat and sand and an ancient desert. From the herbs Xia had thrown into the oil? She didn’t think so. The scent seemed to be coming from Xia. Her throat was parched, too. She didn’t want water, though. She wanted the taste of copper sharp on her tongue.

“Yeah,” Xia whispered. “Me, too. But I need you to pull, Alexandrine. And then hold, you understand me?”

“Gotcha. Do magic but don’t do any magic.”

His eyes flared. “Do it, would you?”

“You won’t be too disappointed if this doesn’t work?”

“Would you just pull?”

“Fine.” She reached into herself, prepared for nothing much happening as a result. Only, her magic was there. Ridiculously easy to reach. She could pull and have magic flow into her in a river instead of a drip.

He drew a hissing breath and whispered, “Alexandrine.” She watched him reach for his knife and hold it in his left hand. He tipped his head to one side and brought the tip of his blade to the skin above his collarbone. He made a deft nick. He didn’t flinch. The smell of blood came to her so abruptly her head swam.

Xia said something low and soft that didn’t sound like English, because it wasn’t. The meaning danced at the edge of her mind but eluded her, of course; whatever language he’d used, she couldn’t even identify it, let alone hope to understand it. He shifted until he was facing her. “Alexandrine.” He gestured her toward him. “You first,” he said.

“First what?” she whispered. But she knew what he wanted to do. His blood welled up from the nick, deep liquid red, and that drew her attention and stopped her thinking about anything but that welling scarlet. Her head felt feverish.

“Alexandrine,” he whispered. “Now.”

She put her hand on his shoulder and leaned toward him.
Just get it over with.
If she didn’t do something now, his blood was going to be wasted.

“Keep holding your magic,” he said.

Her mouth touched his skin, and then the taste of his blood burst over her tongue, thick and dark and better than anything she’d ever tasted. She pressed her fingers into his shoulder, half expecting him to shift away. He didn’t. He remained still. Not a flinch. Not even an extra-deep breath. He tilted his head more to give her better access, and she moved in, rising up and slipping her other hand around the back of his neck. Pressure built in her head and focused in the center of her forehead, a tap almost. Her tongue touched his skin and came back. She was dizzy, and she must have swayed or maybe just tightened her fingers on him, because his hand went to the back of her head, steadying her, holding her there.

His skin was smooth beneath her lips, warm, and he smelled good, of soap and a faint undertone of heat. His hair, soft and warm, fell across the back of her hand. Was the rest of him this wonderful to touch? She wanted him. She couldn’t deny that his body and his beautiful eyes and his face did something fatal to her. Xia tightened his hand on her head and pulled back.

When she looked up, they were closer than she expected. Both of them kneeling, torsos touching. She was pressed against his chest. Xia didn’t let go of her head. He raised his knife, and in the shifting light, rainbows shimmered along the blade. He pulled back her head, twisting to expose the side of her neck. The sense of pressure around her head increased.

“Keep holding,” he said. He spoke softly, again using words she didn’t understand.

Their gazes met, and she blinked as she lost sight of his face. Her mind was filled with an image of her face, as if she were looking down at herself. Her body thrummed with sexual heat and Xia’s desire to penetrate. To be inside heat and damp and to feel the softness of a woman’s body. Which would be her. With Xia.

Fuck, Alexandrine
.

She had no idea if the words were spoken out loud or not. She blinked again and managed to reorient herself. Xia’s eyes burned blue, flickering with something else that lived in his head. She saw the blade move toward her, then lost sight of it as he came closer. She felt the sting of the touch. Icy cold. Or burning hot. She couldn’t tell. And then his head descended.

As kisses went, well, this wasn’t. His mouth was on her throat, and he was holding her tight in his arms, and she was too dizzy to think straight. It was as if a brilliant, sizzling line connected them, and there was magic zinging along the connection. Then he was there. In her head. And he reached into her core. Through her and into her magic, where the talisman’s power had en-twined with hers.

Chapter 16

F
uck.

Xia thought the word straight into Alexandrine’s head. She was whacked out on copa, to the point where her body and mind whirled with the drug. And, man, did she feel good. Prime grade-A witch at her most compelling goodness, exactly the kind of magic the kin craved. The talisman was there, too. Enough of that magic was in her that she could long for the taste of blood as if she were one of the kin. Very unwitchlike of her, that, and one hell of a turn-on for him. Like Carson had been, only even more with Alexandrine.

One of her arms circled his waist, holding on to him for dear life. As if he wasn’t holding her tight already. Because he was. The smell and the taste and the texture of her blood had his senses on high alert. All of them. And there was the matter of her being in his head and him being in hers. They shared mental space even though she was pulling magic.

That made him vulnerable to her. Yeah, he was taking a risk. But the possibility that she’d take him mageheld was pretty damn remote.

At the moment, they were both in deep, dark trouble if he didn’t get this shit with the talisman over with soon. Part of him didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything but keeping his connection with her going. The rest of him understood he needed to act before he lost her and the talisman. He maintained a fierce grip on her head. She couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. Even with her taking up residence in his head, without a clue about what was happening to them, he was perfectly clear whose thoughts and urges belonged to whom, which he knew from bitter experience wasn’t always the case when fiends and mages went at it like this.