The COMPLETE Witching Pen Series, Boxed Set (32 page)

"And I can't seem to stop bloody crying," she added.

"I'll give you anything you need. You do know that, don't you?"

Her beautiful mouth tilted upwards.

"I'm starting to. I haven't known you long – I'd like to get to know you better. If you're waiting for me to declare my undying love for you, I can't do that yet, blood-bond or no blood-bond. If you think I'm the swoony type of heroine you find in romance novels, who'll fall into your arms just because you saved me from an alternate reality or whatever, get ready to leave empty handed, because I don't want to be caught."

He raised an eyebrow. "I've never read a romance novel … but I hear you. Amy, I don't want to catch you – unless we're talking about some hot sex, where I can pin you down and make you moan 'til you're screaming my name in surrender." His cock jumped just at the thought of it. "I'm going to give you very little say in the bedroom, I hope you realise that – that's my nature … whether I like it or not … and I need to learn to like it.

"But I love your independence, I love that you don't swoon, I love that you'll fight me with your last breath if you think I'm wrong, and if I ever have to catch you, I swear I'll make sure you're standing on your feet as quickly as you can manage it. I—"

She shut him up with a kiss. A soft tongue swept along his bottom lip. He moaned and opened his mouth to let her inside. The sweet taste of roses and lemons … with a hint of coffee … drew him in and possessed him. She was truly in his system. He wasn't going to be getting her out without a full blood transfusion, and even then he doubted that would work.

"Amy—"

"No," she whispered, "don't say anything else. That was perfect, what you just said. Perfect. Including the bit about the hot sex," she smiled. "Just hold me for a bit, please."

He did hold her, and he continued to hold her after she fell asleep, and he'd still be there when she woke up. Because he loved her – he knew he did, and his damned cat had always known it. He didn't know if she could ever love him. It didn't matter. He would give her what she needed. And if she needed him to hold her until the end of time, he would.

Epilogue

Gwain circled the floor of the cell, ignoring all the bodies of the security people and reporters that he'd lulled into a stupor for the second time since the early hours of the morning. The shirt button that he'd found on the floor by the far wall seemed to burn a hole in his palm, as it forced images into his mind of what had taken place.
Damn it.
He crushed the button between his finger and thumb.

He'd gotten here too late; the gateway had already closed up. He wondered how the geologists would try to explain that one … or what he was about to do next.

He flared his nostrils. There was that scent again, like hot spice and burnt tar – it heightened his fury. Her aroma was also there, mingled with it – Jasmine. She smelt like fucking Jasmine, and he hadn't been able to get it out of his mind since he'd first caught the tang of her blood in the air, when she'd sat next to him on the porch. What the hell had he been thinking, asking her to call his name? He hadn't been thinking. He'd just known he could help her – known what she needed but could never find. He hadn't been thinking at all, completely caught up in the wonderment of how that blood might smell on a fresh cut, rather than the old ones his senses could pick up on. But then he never did do anything right.

He shook the thoughts out of his head, and concentrated on that first scent, the spice and tar. Here – it was strongest here. He ran his foot over the spot, then pressed down. He could feel it – the give in the cement. No one else would be able to, but he could.

He pulled Mary's necklace from his pocket, closed both his hands around it and uttered a prayer in the Old Tongue. Then he fastened the silver clasp around his neck.

With a rumble that began somewhere in the pit of his stomach before it erupted as a roar from his lungs, he threw himself down and drove his fist into the ground. The cement cracked. He did it again, and the earth shook. Again – his fist bled. Again, again, again … until red light emerged from the split and the heat from the Underworld threatened to scorch his skin.

Standing, he looked at his handy work – not a large gateway, but big enough for him. And he was the only one going in. So much for staying away from Hell.

He took a last look at his wings, knowing they would be burnt away. He didn't yet know how he was going to get back – flying would not be an option.

He hesitated for a second. This was life-altering. Overwhelm gripped him. Then Mary's face filled his mind – the look on it the minute she understood her pain had gone, the minute she had realised peace was possible amid her darkness. Her eyes had met his, and he'd been stunned into stillness, at the absoluteness of the trust and faith he'd seen there. She had trusted him, and had found herself within that trust. And then he'd left her here…

The rumble of fury began again in the pit of his stomach.

"Abaddon,"
he hissed. And then he jumped.

Book Three:
The Demon Bride
 

For you, m’angeal.

Prologue

Her fingernails dug into his wrist, as her scream pierced the air.

“God damn it!” he cursed. “Don't you let go of me – don't let go!”
 

But this was a battle they were both losing. The pulsing abyss beneath her was relentless, swallowing everything too close to it, like some ominous, living black hole, and she was more than too close to it – she was dangling above it, her feet touching the hungry darkness.

Terror gripped her – an unforgiving fear she'd never known, and she'd known a lot of fear.

For a second, exhaustion took her over, and her fingers slipped a little.

“No!” he shouted, and squeezed his hand in a tighter vice around her wrist. His other hand – the left one – was buried in the earth. He had pegged himself into it in an attempt to stop their forward movement. He had his legs entwined around a tree trunk, but the tree was now coming up at the roots, bowing to the force of the suction. Every muscle in his body was straining, bulging unnaturally – she wondered if he'd ripped any yet. Hell, he was strong – but not strong enough.
 

She looked up, forcing her head to move against the pull of the abyss, and met his eyes. Steely grey, and usually so steady, they were now marred with panic and anger. But still he held her gaze, and still – despite the horror of what was about to happen – she found a semblance of peace within his presence.

“Let me go,” she whispered.
 

Her answer was a tenacious growl.

“It'll pull you in if you don't. It doesn't want you, it wants me. Let me go.”
 

He tightened his hold on her.

Damn it! She won't risk him. Not now, not ever.

She spoke to him in the Old Tongue. “I’m not supposed to be here – it was always going to be this way.”

Determination hardened his features.

My God, he's stubborn.

“I love you,” she whispered, and let the truth of her words touch him, seep into him, through the all-consuming connection they shared – one which she suspected was about to be ripped to shreds.
 

He was momentarily stunned at the weight behind her words. She had him off-guard, and in that split second, with a strength she didn't know she possessed, she brought her left hand up, fighting against the vacuum with all she had, and tore into his cheek with her nails.

Startled, his grip loosened, and it was enough.

She yanked her right hand out of his.

His look of shock quickly turned to one of both rage and desperation when he finally realised what she'd done.

Blood seeped through the cuts on his cheeks. Her own face stung in response.

“Forgive me,” she pleaded. “You mean too much to me.”
 

Tears welled in his eyes.

Tears?
Oh, no,
m’angeal
, don't cry. I'm not worth your tears.

“I'll find you, I swear it,” he choked out.
 

As the abyss closed up around her, she uttered a prayer, and she had no idea whether she was praying that he would, or that he wouldn't.

Chapter One

Mary jolted awake, then moaned as the pounding in her head dominated all her senses. A nightmare? No. This pounding felt like normal pain – the kind you had when you hit your head, not the type of pain that seared her during her nightmares.

What had woken her up? A dream? But she didn't have dreams – not normal dreams, anyway...

She tried to grasp at it and failed, the throbbing in her skull preventing her from going in too deep.

And she was hot – too hot –
baking
hot.

Where the fuck am I?

And far too quickly, she remembered her encounter with the monster in the prison, and being dropped into the hole in the ground. A portal of some kind? The memories rushed at her – they came so quickly, she thought she might puke. Ugh. She remembered being thrown down and cracking her head on the cement.

Shit. She hoped she didn't have concussion.

Gingerly, she tried to move and realised that something was crusted onto the left side of her face, which smarted big time – she guessed it was her blood. Her face felt mangled. She must have done it when she'd cracked her head. A glance down at herself told her she was naked. That meant she'd been undressed.

Fuck.

She mentally assessed her body, trying to figure out if she'd been messed with in any way. It felt the same as usual, apart from her arms. Looking up with effort, she could see that her hands were tightly secured above her head in metal cuffs, each attached to a stone wall by short, linked chains.

She gave her hands a little wriggle. Pins and needles shot down to her elbows, which ached. She winced. Could this be any worse?

“She awakes,” came a voice, low and soft, to her right.

It just got worse.

Without really wanting to, but knowing that avoidance was futile, she looked towards the voice. A man sat on some kind of stone tablet. He wore nothing but skin-coloured leather trousers.

Seriously?
Maybe she'd woken up in an eighties porn film – a really bad one.

Then she saw his wings. They were the colour of midnight, and rose up behind him. They looked like they were covered in some kind of oily substance. His
hair was the same colour as his wings, as was the close-cut beard that he wore. His eyes, a piercing blue, caught hers, and a very unwelcome feeling that she couldn't quite name unfurled in the pit of her stomach.

“Who are you?” The first words she uttered came out hoarse. Her throat, she suddenly realised, was completely dry. How long had she been down here for?

The man – or whatever the hell he was – smiled. “Straight to the point. I would expect nothing less of you, Ymari.”

Who?
Although, the word rang with startling familiarity.

“I'm your saviour,” he said.

“I really doubt that, somehow.” She should probably shut up. Bravado never knew good timing.

He chuckled – a low and threatening sound that had her recoiling – then, without warning, he sprang up from his seat and was standing in front of her in the blink of an eye, his enormous wings blocking out the firelight from the torches that lined the stone walls.

Annoyingly, her breath caught in her throat as her fear threatened to choke her.

“You
should
be afraid, Ymari,” he said, his quiet tone washing over her like a deadly caress. “Once your transformation is complete, I won't take so kindly to your back-chatter.”

Transformation?
Oh, that did
not
sound good. She suddenly decided she didn't want to know about her 'transformation' just yet. In fact, she was pretty damn sure anything that would delay her transformation was the best option. “You seem to be confusing me with someone else. My name's Mary.”

“Ymari is Mary in the Old Tongue.”

Oh.

“How long have I been out?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. Time doesn't exist down here. Back in the human world, it could be two days, it could be two years…”

Two years?!

And then the terrifying realisation set in: nobody knew where she was.

For the first time, tears threatened to well up in her eyes, but she quickly willed them away. This bastard wouldn't see them fall.

“I've got friends that will come for me.” Even to her own ears she didn't sound convincing.

The man tutted at her, as if telling her off for her lie. “Nobody comes down here – except the scum of mankind … besides, you have no friends, Ymari, everyone knows that. You were born alone … but you won't die alone. In fact, you'll never die.” He reached up with a finger and trailed it down the torn side of her face, digging in deep and scraping the bloody scab off as he went.

She yelped when her skin tore anew, then gasped in horror as her body responded to the pain in the only way it knew how.

Oh, God, no way…

His smirk was sure and knowing. He withdrew his finger, which shone red with her fresh blood and placed it in his mouth, sucking hard. His eyelids fluttered shut, and he groaned in pleasure.

A shudder of revulsion ran through her. It was one thing to be trussed up naked; it was another to have him take pleasure in her blood. Somehow, that seemed even more of a violation than if he had touched her.

“Do you know how long I've waited to taste you again?”