Sacrificed (Book Six of the Castle Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel Read online

  Hailey felt tears prickle her eyes as the two spoke low in a melodic language that she guessed might actually be Latin. Without putting her down, without another word, Lucius strode off, and neither of them were seen for a full day.

  When she emerged, Liona looked tired, but her smirk was unmistakeable.

  “You look well,” Hailey commented. Liona’s smile only got wider.

  “I feel well,” Liona replied. “I left him snoring like a pig, so I thought I’d sneak out to get some food.”

  Hailey made her friend a sandwich before broaching something that had been on her mind for some time.

  “You never speak of Gaius,” said Hailey carefully. Liona and Lucius had had another lover as well, a Gaelic sorcerer who had stayed with Liona to form the coven system while Lucius went on to form what would become the Magus Corps.

  “Do I not? I suppose there is not much to say about those who are a part of you.”

  “So…he did not leave?”

  “That is an interesting question when you live as long as we do, Hailey. The first hundred years or so, no, we never left each other’s sides. Then the relationship wore at me for a bit, so he remained in Alexandria with the coven while I went exploring down the Nile. After that, we lost track of each other for a long while, and then spent a full two hundred years together building the coven in Rome.”

  Hailey’s head spun at the stretch of history that Liona described. The other woman had lived such a long time, with so much seen and known and learned. If she were lucky, her own life would stretch as long, but right now, she couldn’t imagine it.

  “Are you together now?’

  Liona’s smile was a little wistful.

  “Over more than a thousand years, I would say that we have spent more of it together than apart. He felt the need for solitude a few years ago, and went into the human world. I believe he’s studying in Beijing these days.”

  “And you’ll see him again?”

  “If he lives and I live. If we wish it.”

  Hailey chewed her lip, unable to voice the agitation that was welling up in her. As if sensing her disquiet, Liona pulled her into her arms for a warm hug.

  “You have two men who love you. The more I live in this world, the more I learn that you should control the things that you can control, and everything else will happen as it happens. You have them today. Love them today. Let tomorrow take care of itself.”

  Hailey understood the wisdom of Liona’s words, but it was hard. It made her think of her immortality, or the potential for it. As of yet, she was uninitiated. Wiccans only became immortal after an act of unprotected sex with another Wiccan. Piers and Kieran had lived for centuries, but for herself, she had not yet decided whether she wanted the extended lifetime at all.

  When she thought of a long life with Piers and Kieran, however, the decision seemed clear. She would do whatever she could to have more time with them, to be with them as long as fate and chance allowed.

  She wished that she could talk with both of them about it, but it was becoming increasingly hard to find them. Piers was closeted away and working on something, while Kieran was increasingly frustrated with the lack of action he was seeing from the Magus Corps. He had been told to hold his position for the moment. Hailey could see it wearing at him.

  When he wasn’t pacing, he was training, spending time honing his skills and staying sharp. She was beginning to worry that he would be so sharp he became brittle, but she could think of nothing that she could do to help him.

  One morning, not long after Lucius reappeared, she came across the man himself at one of the tables in the cafeteria of the Castle, using a tablet with intense interest.

  “Fantastic little devices,” he said, showing her the video he was watching. To her amusement, it was a television show about Rome. “I could have used these at just about any point throughout the last millennium or so.”

  “I’m not sure the tenth century had that many good shows or good wifi, but I see your point.”

  She came to sit beside him, offering him one of the apples she had taken from the kitchen.

  “You look troubled,” he observed.

  Hailey bit her lip before nodding.

  “Things are getting ready to change. I wish that they would just do it already.”

  “Waiting for action is always the worst part of it,” Lucius agreed. “I’d say try to take your mind off it, but that has never worked when Liona said it to me.”

  Hailey grinned and was about to respond when she felt a stabbing pain shoot through her mind. Distantly, she was aware that Lucius was next to her, cradling her body as she slumped over on her side. Her vision flickered, swimming in and out of focus, but then her eyes opened wide. She was not looking at the friendly walls of the Castle. Instead, she was in the Shadow Walk Prison again.

  The sky above was painfully familiar, a bruised and sullen purple streaked with green lightning. She stood on ground that was sharp and cracked, and all around her, she could hear the groaning of what sounded like a horde of people in pain. In this dream, she had form but no weight. She drifted over the ground, cresting over a rise, and what she saw made her cover her mouth in horror.

  Ranged below her were at least a hundred people melded with demons. There was a curious solidity to them, and with a sickening turn of her belly, she realized that their physical forms had somehow been brought into the Shadow Walk Prison. She, Piers and Kieran had only ever ventured into that dark place with their spirits. This was far worse. The Shadow Walk Prison was no place for physical bodies. At the very least, it seemed to make those bodies suffer and twist.

  Walking through the ranks were men that she knew instinctively to be Templars. They pushed the possessed Wiccans into place, disgust and fear on their faces as well. They might have made these monsters, but it was clear that they had no deep love for them at all.

  “A fine shock troop.”

  The voice was a deep growl, and it was uttered so close to where Hailey stood that she nearly stumbled down the hill in surprise. Behind her were two figures that must have walked up the hill behind her. To her great relief, neither of them seemed able to see her despite the fact that she stood just a few feet away. The speaker was enormous. His body was that of a strong man, though his muscles were attached at odd angles to his bones, something that gave him a strange and misshapen profile. He was covered with short, sleek black fur, and in place of a human head, he had a horse’s skull. Two hellish pricks of light filled his eye sockets, giving him a strangely knowing look.

  Despite the monstrosity of the demon, it was the man next to him that made Hailey shiver with fear. He was a man of middle years. His face was kind, framed between his dark hair and a snow white, cropped beard. She knew this man. He was the one who had spoken so calmly about infesting Piers and Kieran while passing her seemingly powerless body over to a minor demon for its own use. He looked more like a friendly banker than a warrior bent on the annihilation of all of her kind, but she knew that he was a Templar.

  “They are ready,” the Templar said with easy confidence. “They will be magnificent.”

  The demon snorted, the sound oddly horse-like.

  “So you say, son of man. They are abominations in my sight and the sight of my kind.”

  The Templar shrugged as if it worried him very little.

  “Your kind deal in abominations. Be grateful you are getting this chance to walk the world. For now, our enemies are one and the same.”

  The demon moved as if he would very much like to kick the Templar, but then he calmed.

  “When shall we move?”

  “You told me that travel through the Shadow Walk Prison operates on a different time span than travel through the real world. We should move soon. The place in the Shadow Walk Prison corresponding to the mountains of Wyoming should be easy enough to get to, but it is a long trek, especially for an army such as this one.”

  Hailey’s gasp was so loud that she was convinced that the Templ
ar and the demon must have heard her. Instead, she felt herself be pulled backwards, powerfully as if by an unseen hand. She flailed hard, trying to prevent the crash that was imminent.

  Instead, she nearly smashed Lucius in the face with a flailing hand before sitting up straight. She was surrounded by a group of concerned faces. She was confused for a moment, but then Lucius was pushing them back, telling them to give her air.

  “Are you well?” he asked.

  She started to say yes, but then she shook her head.

  “Nothing is well at all,” she said. “I need to speak with Kieran and Piers.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CLOSETED IN PIERS’S office, she outlined what she had seen to Kieran and Piers. She could tell from the alarmed looks on their faces that they understood the importance of her vision immediately.

  Kieran looked ill.

  “That means that they at least think that they can strike anywhere and at anytime. They could travel through the Shadow Walk Prison and attack when a community is not expecting it.”

  “And they’re aimed in our general direction,” Piers agreed.

  He had gone paler and paler when Hailey had been talking about the vision.

  “Surely they would be targeting the Castle with a force like that?” asked Hailey.

  Piers shook his head.

  “Wyoming’s a very popular place with Wiccans,” he explained to her. “We’re far from the only coven located in the state. We’re not even the biggest one. The biggest one is located to the west, and it’s quite old.”

  “So all we know is that they can travel in a way that we cannot track, and that they are aimed in our general direction.” Hailey shook her head with disgust.

  “We know more than we did,” said Kieran, dropping a kiss on her head. “That’s something.”

  Both Kieran and Piers swung into action, and Hailey was once again left to her own devices. She spent the rest of the day training in the courtyard with the other adults of the Castle. There were children who lived at the Castle as well, but she saw that they were being kept at home and at the small school more often than not. There was a sense of danger all around, of a tension that might snap at any moment. It hurt her heart to see the place she thought of as home looking like this, but there was something right about it as well. She understood that the people who lived in the Castle were getting ready to defend it.

  She was just finishing up her shower that evening when she heard a soft knock at her door. Wrapping herself in her soft robe, she wrung out her hair as best she could. When she opened the door, Kieran smiled at her. He didn’t mince words.

  “I’m leaving in the morning,” he said softly. “I’ve received my orders.”

  Her eyes wide, Hailey threw herself into his arms. All of the good advice that she had received about letting things come as they would, about realizing that there was nothing she could do to control the world, flew right out of her head. Instead, all she knew was that she wasn’t ready.

  She tugged Kieran into the room with her, closing the door behind him.

  “I don’t want you to leave,” she said miserably.

  With a soft sigh, he gathered her up into his arms, cradling her on his lap as they sat on the couch.

  “I don’t want to leave. I swear to you, I will come back to you. There isn’t a force on earth that could keep me from your side.”

  Hailey throttled her misery as much as she could. There would be time later to address it, to worry and to mull things over. Right now, she had the man she loved in her arms. That was all that the moment promised, and she swore that she would make the most of it.

  Twisting in his arms, she turned around so that she could kiss his mouth fully. He was at first startled at her passionate embrace, but then he fell into it, holding her just as tightly. He was still dressed casually in a jeans and a black T-shirt. She could feel his muscular body easily through the thin fabric.

  She turned around to straddle his lap as she continued kissing him. She could tell from his brief gasp that he had seen her robe gape open. The fabric of his jeans was rough against the tenderness of her inner thighs, something that made her press even more closely against his body.

  “So beautiful to me,” she whispered. “So lovely.”

  He laughed a little.

  “I could say the same about you,” he whispered.

  She could feel him grow hard underneath her. His body was like a well-tuned machine, made for war. She relished the fact that she could evoke this powerful response in him, that she could bring him the kind of release that he wanted and that his body craved. Deliberately, she reached down between them and squeezed him gently through his jeans, wringing a soft moan from him.

  “I love you both,” she murmured, “but I loved you first. And I do love you, so, so much, Kieran.”

  He stirred under her touch. When he looked at her, his eyes were dark and unfocused.

  “You have opened up more in me than I ever expected existed,” he said, his voice a soft rumble. “I have never wanted another woman more. The life we have chosen is a strange one, but it is ours, and I would never turn my back on it.”

  “I want you,” she murmured, kissing him deeply. “May I have you?”

  Kieran nodded, cupping the back of her head with his large hand. Though she could feel his strength in every motion that he made, she knew that he would never harm her. He would never hurt her or cause her pain.

  “I need you,” he whispered. “Right now, I need you so much.”

  His blue eyes were brilliant as she stepped back and dropped the robe that she had been wearing. She knew how she looked. Her fair skin was warm and wet, aching for touch. She reached out to take his hand, laying it on her small breast.

  “Give me all of you right now,” she whispered. “I can see the beast in you, did you know that? You want me, so have me.”

  That was all the signal that Kieran needed. In a split second, he was off the couch and on top of her. He didn’t bother taking her to her bed or even the couch behind them. Instead, he bore her to the carpeted floor, pushing her down on her back so that she looked up at him.

  Some part of her thrilled at the power of his frame, the way he kissed her throat and her shoulder so roughly. She knew that he was powerful enough to take what he wanted, but she also knew his heart. He would never offer her harm, never take what she didn’t want to give.

  His hot mouth trailed from her shoulder down to her breast. His skilled pink tongue lapped her nipple until it was hard and aching. Then he turned his attention to the other, making her wiggle against him in impatience.

  “I want you now,” she whispered, and the only response was a soft laugh.

  She started to ask him what he thought was so funny when he trailed his fingers down her belly to stroke between her legs. She whimpered as his body shifted to one side, giving him all the access to her form he needed.

  “Let me touch you, let me look at you,” he whispered urgently. “I love you, and where I am going, I will be out of my mind with missing you.”

  Hailey swallowed hard and nodded. It was the most blissful kind of torture to have him move over her, to feel his powerful hands touching her with so much gentleness and care. He stroked her thighs open, exposing the very core of her to his mouth. She tensed when he lowered his mouth to her, but then she closed her eyes, pressing herself upwards towards his skilled touch and tongue.

  She felt the waves of pleasure that threatened to suffuse her, drown her. She knew that if she gave him an inch, she would be borne away on those waves. She would find her own thunderous satisfaction, and she couldn’t deal with that at the moment, not when it might leave him wanting.

  As if he could read her thoughts, he drew back and reached into his pocket for a condom. For one wild moment, Hailey thought about telling him to leave it off. If she had to wait for him, she would be willing to wait forever. However, there was something that made her hold her tongue. Instead, she watched with hungry eyes as
he smoothed the condom over his straining flesh. She reached down to squeeze his cock in her hand firmly, making him groan.

  “I want all of you,” he murmured intimately.

  With a soft sigh of surrender, she lay back, spreading her legs wide. He took her narrow hips in his hands, lifting her up to him. She felt the tip of his cock at her entrance. She whimpered. She couldn’t stand it if he teased her. A hoarse laugh from her lover told him that he had no intention of doing that.

  Instead, he slid deep inside her, filling her up in one long and sensual stroke. There was nothing that she wanted more than him. There was nothing better than the way he felt inside her. When he was fully seated inside her, she opened her eyes and looked at him.

  “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered, making him chuckle.

  “I’m nothing but scars and anger,” Kieran murmured. “You’re the beautiful one.”

  Before she could argue with him longer, he took a firmer grip on her hips and started to thrust deep inside her. He drew almost all the way out before surging in again. His motions were slow and steady, letting her lose herself in the sensations that he was creating inside her. There was so much he could make her feel, so much that she wanted.

  “More, I want more,” she whispered brokenly.

  His motions quickened, pushing inside her and driving her higher and higher. When he moved one hand to her clit, though, she pushed his hand away.

  “I want to watch you,” she said softly. “I want to see you spill first.”

  Kieran groaned at her words, and his motions became even more rough. In a matter of moments, he went from slow and measured thrusts to something much more rapid, something much more desperate. She felt him drive into her over and over again, lost in his own fury.

  She could feel the way her body responded to him. She couldn’t take her hands off of his chest and his shoulders. She needed him, and in that moment, he was more important than her own pleasure. She wondered at how strong he was.

  When his motions sped up, she tightened her legs around his waist, pulling him even deeper inside her.