Entering his chamber a short while later, Cain found Wynter curled up on a chair reading a tattered paperback—casual, relaxed, at ease … like she hadn’t earlier engaged in a battle.
Her head snapped up as she sensed him, no lines of stress on her face, no lingering anger at having fought for her life. “You’re looking very fierce right now,” she said, her brows lowering.
He was feeling fierce. Closing the distance between them, he said, “Stand.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she slowly set her book down on the bulky armrest and then just as slowly pushed out of her chair.
“I hear you ran into some keepers in the woods,” said Cain, unable to keep the thread of ire out of his voice. He peeled off her tee and examined both her left shoulder and her chest. Whatever wounds she’d earlier sported were gone. The skin was completely unmarred.
“My injuries weren’t too bad. Nothing Anabel’s brews couldn’t fix.”
Cain’s back teeth locked at the easy way she’d dismissed the wounds. “Yes, this time. Next time you might not be so lucky.”
She frowned. “It wasn’t luck. It was skill. And I’m not sure why you’re mad at me, but shake it off. It’s not like I want keepers on my ass. Or like I took on a whole squadron of them by myself. I had backup, and there weren’t many to take down.”
Irritation buzzed through Cain. He slid his hand up her chest to collar her throat while bunching his free hand in the hair at the back of her head. “Don’t make light of this. Don’t act as if the incident was a minor issue. An attack on you will always be far from minor to me, no matter how much backup you have.” He paused, his nostrils flaring. “That’s twice now I’ve been notified that you were targeted while I was none the wiser.”
Her frown smoothing out, she played her fingers through his hair. “The protective routine shouldn’t make me all tingly, should it?”
A ribbon of amusement unfurled inside him. “You know, most people get nervous when I’m pissed off.”
“Most people don’t have my perverse libido.”
He let out a long breath and shook his head, releasing her. “The keepers weren’t the only ‘visitors’ we had from Aeon today. Two males also came, though the parties seem to have traveled here separately. One was sent to convince you to come home—a male witch by the name of Rafe.”
Her face brightened. “Rafe is here?”
A black jealousy threatened to rear up inside Cain, and his creature coiled as every muscle tightened. “This man means something to you?”
“Not in that way,” she said with a shudder. “He’s like family. I owe how well-trained I am to him. In which case, I also owe him my life ten times over. You didn’t kill him, did you?”
“No, purely because I sensed that he didn’t want you to return to Aeon. He asked me to tell you to take care of yourself, and to pass on an apology for his failure to alter Esther’s plans.”
“What? That’s dumb, I don’t hold him responsible.”
“He seems to feel that he could have done more for you. I sent him and his conduit friend home. But not before I had a talk with Lailah via the conduit.”
Wynter’s eyes sharpened. “Interesting. What did you and Lailah talk about?”
“Several things. Mostly you. The Aeons have worked out that a curse is at the source of the environmental degradation.”
“I figured they would eventually.”
Cain studied her face carefully as he expanded, “Someone whose magick is dark like yours told them that your death wouldn’t be enough to undo it; that more than dark magick weaved it.”
Wynter didn’t betray her emotions with even a flicker of a micro-expression. It was as impressive as it was frustrating.
“You said that only your destruction would end it.”
“Uh, no, Azazel said that. Or presumed it, I should say. I simply never corrected him. And before you ride my ass about lying by omission, bear in mind that it will only make you a hypocrite—you do the omission thing, like, all the time.”
Cain snapped his mouth shut. “If Azazel had asked if your life-force was tied to the hex, would you have answered him truthfully?”
“No, because he would have asked how it was otherwise possible for a mere witch to afflict protected land with such a curse.”
“I’d already sensed that you aren’t a mere witch.” If she was surprised that he’d already reached that conclusion, she didn’t show it. “What exactly are you?”
“What exactly are you?”
“I asked first.”
“I’ll answer if you will.”
He sighed, having already expected that would be her response. Nothing could be easy with this woman. “I don’t like that I had to find out the truth about this from Lailah. I don’t like that there’s so much about you I don’t know.”
Her expression went blank. “Does this mean you’re done? That you want to end it?”
Cain frowned. “Fuck, no.” He caught her face with his hands. “It will take time for you to trust me with all you hold inside—I know that. The same applies to me. But we’ll get there eventually. Until then, well, I suspect neither of us are going to like the gaps in our knowledge of the other. I can complain about it even as I accept it.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “All right. Did Lailah say anything else?”
Sliding his hands from Wynter’s face to her neck, he replied, “She’s finally worked out that you’re not an everyday witch. She seems to feel that I should find you a ‘concern.’ A danger to Devil’s Cradle. A ‘dark power’ that I can’t afford to trust.”
“And do you see me that way?”
He hiked up a brow. “Do you truly think I do?”
“No, but … I don’t know, you’re just looking at me differently right now. I’ve had people turn on me before because I don’t fit the mold.”
Same here, baby. “The Aeons don’t like that they don’t fully understand you. Nor do they like that they can’t explain why you can do the things you do. For them, that’s reason enough to want you dead. They have no real tolerance for things that are ‘different.’” He settled his hands on her shoulders and gave them a little squeeze. “I’m not them, Wynter.”
She gave a slow nod, a long breath slipping out of her.
“You warned Lailah that there would be consequences when she exiled you?”
“Yes.”
“She said there was a foreign disturbance in the air that day.”
“So she merely wanted to chat with you?”
Cain lowered his face to hers. “She wanted me to hand you over. I refused. So she then offered me something in exchange for you. I essentially told her to go fuck herself. Which means there’ll be war.”
“And that pleases you, doesn’t it?”
“It does.” He cocked his head. “Just how many things are you hiding from me?”
She licked her lower lip. “Probably not as many as you’re hiding from me.”
Probably not.
“When the Aeons come, I want to be part of the battle.”
Cain almost barked a humorless laugh. “That isn’t going to happen.”
Her spine straightened. “Excuse me?”
“Wynter, I know you’re powerful. I know you can fight with both sword and magick. But you wouldn’t stand a chance against an Aeon.”
“I’m not saying I’d go challenge one. But they won’t come alone. They’ll bring a massive force. I can be part of handling said force.”
“You need to stay down here in the city, where you’ll be safe.”
She did a slow blink. “Please tell me you’re joking. As you now know, my death won’t undo the curse—”
“You say that like it therefore wouldn’t matter if you ceased to exist. It would matter to me, Wynter. It would matter a fuck of a lot.”
“I get it. I wouldn’t want you to die either. But ask you to sit this fight out? No, I wouldn’t do that. Don’t ask it of me. I won’t stay home twiddling my fingers while others battle a bunch of assholes that I brought to their town.”
“You realize that every single one of their army will be ordered to take you? You will be their focus, Wynter. They’ll kill whoever they need to kill just to get to you. And we both know you’d die before you let them take you. Why risk yourself that way?”
Her brow creased. “Why do you sound offended that I would?”
His lips flattening, he pulled her toward him using his grip on her shoulders, closing the small gap between them. “I want you to want to live, Wynter. I want you to value enough what we have that you’d at least want to live so we can see where this goes.”
“So by being part of the battle, you don’t value this? Is that what you’re saying?”
He ground his teeth. “No.”
“It’s no different for me, so don’t twist what I’m saying. You’re uber powerful, sure. But you’ll be up against beings that can actually kill you. Your life will be at risk. I don’t hear you offering to stay home.” She perched her hands on her hips. “Why, in your mind, should you get to face them but I don’t? What did they do to you that makes your grudge so much more important than mine?”
He stared at her, touching his incisor with the tip of his tongue. “I will trust you with the answer to that … if you first tell me one thing honestly.”
She folded her arms. “Go on.”
He had a thousand questions he would love to fire at her, but she’d refuse to answer any that she wouldn’t consider worth the trade of truths. In her position, he’d do same. So he settled on asking, “Who is your father? What is he?”
She blinked. “I don’t actually know who he is. I never met him, and my mother didn’t say much about him.”
“Why not?”
“She was not a fan of his. All she ever said was that he was a witch and that I was better off not knowing him. She promised to tell me more when I was ‘old enough to hear it,’ but she didn’t get that chance. I asked my grandmother and other members of the coven about him. Apparently, he was a one-night stand. When she told him she was pregnant, he wanted nothing to do with us. Davina didn’t want to tell me that when I was so young, she worried it would hurt me.”
That didn’t explain anything for Cain. He didn’t see how someone who wasn’t a born hybrid could be so different from an average witch.
“Now it’s your turn,” she said. “Yes, I know my response didn’t whatsoever satisfy you, but I did as you asked and answered your question. Now you need to live up to your end of the bargain.”
Heaving a sigh, Cain sank into the armchair and patted his thighs. “Sit.”
She straddled him and rested her hands on his shoulders.
He smoothed one hand up her back. “What do you know about the war that went on between the Ancients and the Aeons?”
She pursed her lips. “Not much. The Aeons were pretty vague about it. They just said a war broke out, your side lost, and they ‘mercifully’ let seven of you leave and make a home elsewhere.”
The word ‘mercifully’ made his creature growl. “They lied. They didn’t allow the survivors to live out of mercy, Wynter. It was supposed to be a punishment. A cruel one at that. We didn’t settle here to make a new home. They put us here. We cannot leave the boundaries. It’s essentially a cage.”
Her jaw went slack. “Wow. I just thought you all preferred to stick to your little corner of the world.”
“We probably would—the Earth as a whole doesn’t hold much interest for us. We may be stuck in Devil’s Cradle, but we have ways of peeking at the outside world and we’re not impressed by what we’ve seen of it. Plus, we’re not roamers, and we prefer to live in groups. But we still don’t wish to be trapped.” He ghosted his fingertips over her nape. “The Aeons believed we’d lose our minds and kill each other. They underestimated us. They’ve continued to do that for a long time.” And more fool them.
“Your only way to get revenge is to make them step on your land … except there was never a reason for them to come here,” she mused.
Cain nodded. “Until now.”
Wynter stared at him, biting her lip. Damn, this explained so much—how easily he’d promised to keep her safe, how unbothered he’d been by the prospect of the Aeons coming for her, how eager he and the other Ancients were for war.
He toyed with her hair. “Four Aeons were responsible for caging us. Only their deaths will open that cage.”
“What four?”
“The ruling Aeons. Adam, Abel, Lailah, and Lailah’s brother Saul.”
“So they’re more powerful than you and the other Ancients combined?” She wouldn’t have thought so.
“No. We can’t dismantle the cage ourselves, because they used our blood to enforce the power they used to construct the prison—essentially making us our own captors.”
“Blood magick works a little like that. If you fuel the spell with the victim’s blood, the victim can’t undo it. They might as well have put the spell on themselves.”
Cain swept a fingertip over her lower lip. “Lailah wronged you when she essentially sentenced you to death, just as Abel wronged your mother when he did the same to her. It is only natural that you would crave vengeance. But not even you can argue that my craving for vengeance runs far deeper than yours.”
Hell no, she couldn’t. Which was mega frustrating. She’d always known there was bad blood between the Ancients and the Aeons, but she hadn’t expected his beef with them to be so profound. “I can’t argue that, no,” she admitted. “I won’t try to. But I still intend to be part of the battle, Cain.” She braced herself for an outburst, but he steadily stared back at her.
Finally, he shrugged. “If you’re so determined, fine.”
Oh, now that was way too easy. “I don’t like how cooperative you’re suddenly being. It’s weird.” She couldn’t help but get the feeling that he’d come to some decision in his head that he didn’t care to share. “If you’re thinking of locking me in a room on the day of the battle, don’t.”
His brows lifted, and he pursed his lips in thought. “That’s not a bad idea. You probably shouldn’t have put it in my head.”
“I mean it, Cain.”
“I see that.” He deftly flicked open the catch at the front of her bra. “Now tell me more about the incident in the woods.”
“Hoping to distract me now, are you?”
“The conversation is getting us nowhere. It seems better to simply move on.” He slid the cups of her bra aside and filled his hands with her breasts. “Or better yet … we can forget talking.” Warm and firm, his palms squeezed and plumped.
Maybe she should have insisted that they remain on topic, but what was the point? They weren’t going to agree on the matter. And, well, this was way more fun. So she gave into the moment—arching into his touch, digging her nails into his shoulders, moaning as he nipped and licked at her mouth but didn’t kiss her. Asshole.
Cain curled an arm around her waist and lifted her so that her breasts were level with his mouth. He latched onto her nipple and, mother of God, he sucked hard. So hard her inner muscles clenched and a pulse of pleasure shot to her clit.
Wynter thrust her fingers through his hair and scraped his scalp with her nails. He growled around her nipple, and the slight delicious vibration shocked a gasp out of her.
“Undo your shorts, I want you naked,” said Cain, shedding her bra while kissing his way to her other nipple. And then the taut bud was in his mouth and, hell, the man had some serious game in the bedroom.
She undid her fly and pushed at her shorts and panties. It was Cain who gripped the waistbands and tugged them down to help her shuck off the clothes. Then she was naked. And hot. And damp. And more than ready for whatever soul-deep pleasure he had in mind.
“Cain,” she breathed.
“You’re going to ride me. You’re going to fuck yourself on my cock while I watch. And you’re not going to come until I allow it. Understood?”
Why that revved her engines instead of switching them off, she really couldn’t say. She also didn’t care to question it. “Yes.”
“So very cooperative in bed.” He cupped her pussy, blatantly possessive. “It is a shame you’re not so cooperative outside of it.”
“You’d get bored of me if I was.”
Cain nearly barked a laugh at that ridiculous statement. “I could never find you boring, little witch. You fucking fascinate me even as you drive me insane with your secrets and stubbornness.” He slipped one finger between her folds and dipped it inside her, a growl vibrating his chest. “Wet and ready for me.”
Aching to be inside her, Cain tore open his fly, freed his cock, and then casually splayed his hands on the armrests. “Remember, you don’t come until I allow it.” Maddened by her refusal to sit out the fight, he needed this from her; needed to exert what control over her he could.
Wynter muttered something beneath her breath, but all he made out was “high-handed.” She positioned herself above his cock and wasted no time in lowering herself over him. Her lips parting, she dug her fingertips into his shoulders as she slowly bore down until, finally, she’d taken every inch.
He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling his face smooth out. “Yeah, that’s what I needed. That sweet pussy swallowing my cock.”
She set a fast rhythm as she rode him hard. He didn’t touch her. Didn’t kiss her. Didn’t pleasure her soul. He just watched her, occasionally urging her on, as she impaled herself on him over and over.
Feeling her inner muscles, he shot her a look of warning. “Not yet.”
Sparks of anger flared in her eyes, but she held back her release.
“That’s a good girl.”
Mentally cursing him, she sank down on his cock again and again, so damn wet it was almost embarrassing. Every slice of his dick through her body built the tension inside her. Every whispered and often filthy praise was like a flick to her clit. Every look of carnal promise speared her womb, reminding her what was coming. It became harder and harder to stave off the release edging her way, and she was soon squeezing her eyes shut against the struggle.
“You did good, little witch. Now you can come.”
She sucked in a breath as an avalanche of pleasure tumbled along her soul, electrifying her from the inside out. Her eyes snapped open, and her pace faltered. God, the level of sensation … There might as well have been thousands of tongues, mouths, teeth, fingers, and hands all over her. And her orgasm stole over her in a blind rush.
“My turn.” Cain clamped his hands around her hips and began slamming her on his cock. He then pretty much flayed her soul with euphoria. He kept switching it up—a wave of pure bliss, a stroke of pleasure/pain, dark lashes of sensation.
Her lungs burned for air. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest. Her nerve-endings were on fire, sensitive to even the air itself.
Her mind became all fuzzy and foggy … until she felt disconnected from her body yet felt every single physical touch so much more acutely.
She wouldn’t last. She couldn’t. Wynter didn’t even get the chance to warn Cain—her orgasm swallowed her whole. She burst, broke, imploded, screamed.
She was distantly aware of his fingertips biting into her hips as he slammed her harder onto his dick while punching up his hips to meet each downward thrust. A soft curse escaped him as the first hot rope of his come splashed her inner walls. His shaft throbbed and swelled as he fucked his orgasm into her body.
She slumped forward, panting like a damn racehorse. “I swear, giving up partial rights to my soul was worth it just for the soul-gasms.”
Feeling his lips twitch, Cain swept a hand up her sleek back. “And to think I almost had Dantalion cover for me that day you came to the mansion looking for residency.”
She lifted her head to meet his gaze. “You did?”
Cain nodded. “My mood was … not good. I was tempted to retreat my garden for a few hours. If I had, it would have been him you made a deal with.” Cain twisted his mouth. “It would not have been easy to convince him to give me his rights to your soul, but I’d have somehow managed it.”
Her brows snapped together. “Wait, give them to you?”
Cain felt this brow arch. “You think I’d have allowed anyone else to own any rights to any part of you?”
Sitting up straighter, she gave her head a little shake. “I mean, how could he have given them to you?”
“Ancients can trade souls, or even the partial rights we hold to them. Dantalion doesn’t have an undead soul in his collection, so he wouldn’t have parted with half of yours easily no matter what person in my service I offered him in exchange.”
“Wouldn’t I have had some say in the matter?”
“No, because once you give up that half of your soul, you no longer have a say in what happens to it.”
“You never mentioned that before.”
“I figured it was obvious.” Cain used his thumb to smooth away the line that furrowed her brow. “Don’t worry, sweet witch, I’d never give away my rights to your soul. They will never belong to anyone but me.”
She swallowed. “Even if this thing we have ends?”
“Even then. But it won’t end. I won’t let it. I thought I made that clear.”
“You did,” said Wynter, putting a placatory hand on his chest, not liking how his expression had hardened. “It’s not that I doubt your honesty. It’s just that, well, things don’t always work out the way we want them to.” It was a lesson she’d learned early.
“But sometimes they do. And this will.”
He said it so simply, so resolutely, it made her chest ache. Though she believed he meant every word, she couldn’t quite conjure up enough faith to also believe that her secrets would change nothing between them. “I hope you’re right.”
“I am. So often that it’s irritating, according to Seth.” His eyes flitted over her face, warm and intent. “Too beautiful for words.”
“That was a nice thing to say. You’re quite the looker, too. For an old guy.”
Humor lit his eyes. “An old guy?”
“Well, you do predate the Bible.”
“As does your soul. It has led many lives. And no, I cannot tell you about them—I have no access to such details. But I have enough knowledge of souls to sense that yours is very old.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Using that weird tone when you talk about my soul. Like it’s a shiny toy.”
His lips quirking, Cain pressed a kiss to her neck. “I do enjoy playing with it. You enjoy it just as much. I’m planning to play with it some more while we shower.”
Her body stirred. “I look forward to it. But I gotta warn you … it won’t matter how many more monumental orgasms you give me tonight, or how sweet and complimentary you keep being, I’m still gonna be on the proverbial battlefield.”
His hand gently delved into her hair and combed his fingers through it. “Understood,” he said, sounding oh so agreeable.
She bit back a snort. She didn’t doubt for a single moment that he’d try to keep her out of harm’s way. Wynter wasn’t too worried about it, though, because he had no way of truly confining her anywhere. He simply didn’t know it yet.
