Witch Way Out (Witch Detectives #3) (7 page)

I shrugged. “He was winding up with some kind of spell to hit Siobhan.”

“What kind of spell?”

“How should I know? Nothing good, if he was using it as an attack. I didn’t want to wait until he’d hit her with it to find out. So, I stepped in and ate the power he was using.”

Rebecca swallowed. I could feel the tension under that carefully controlled surface. I’d done the same thing to her once, dragging her power out through the smallest of wounds. I’d had to fight to keep from doing more.

“You fed on him.”

I looked her in the eye. “I did what I needed to do to stop him from using magic against us.”

“Really? That’s the only reason you did it?”

“That’s it, Rebecca. All of it. You can believe me or not. I don’t care much either way, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t be here to listen to my side of things if you’d already made up your mind.”

She sat there, her hands clasped around the warmth of the mug of tea Fergie had handed her. I could feel the shifting emotions as she thought it through; the worry and the doubt, mixed in with a few fragments of old friendliness.

“Shall I just come out and say it?” I asked. “You’re worried that I might be turning into a killer. Into…
her
. You’re wondering if you need to send people after me.”

Rebecca shook her head so fast I was surprised that it didn’t give her whiplash. “You know I wouldn’t do that.”

Perhaps it was because she was too frightened.
Maybe.
Frightened people did stupid things.

Rebecca pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why do you always have to make everything so difficult, Elle? I’ve got enough problems with the coven trio as it is, wandering around asking questions, judging whether I’m doing my job well enough, without adding all
this
to the problem. What am I meant to say to them when they ask what happened and what I’m doing about it?”

“Tell them the truth,” I suggested. “It’s not like they don’t know I was there. Flora met me in the lobby.”

“Great.” That was practically a groan. “So, they’re looking
everywhere
. What were you even doing in the Archive, Elle? And taking a goblin along?”

I walked over to stand beside her, closer than was comfortable. “I was looking for information on your case. Siobhan was helping me. Why, do you have a problem with her helping?”

Rebecca looked over to the goblin girl. “No, but there are plenty who might. With everything that happened before…people are worried.”

Witches
were worried, at least. Worried, presumably, that not all of those who had been in on Victoria’s scheme to take back the up-world were in on it only because she’d controlled them.

“We were trying to pin down whether there was any way it could have been a natural side effect,” I said. “Siobhan helped with the research.”

“Could it?” Rebecca seemed to brighten a little at the prospect of everything being neatly resolved.

I looked over at Siobhan, who shook her head.

“I didn’t find anything,” she assured me.

“But you have the situation contained?” Rebecca asked.

I nodded. “I’ve planted doubts with the people on the site. I’m still trying to work out what actually happened though, and until I do that, I can’t guarantee that it won’t happen again. There isn’t enough evidence so far.”

“Keep looking. You’ll find something eventually.” Rebecca sighed. “In the meantime, I’ve got to go and try to make sure that what happened at the Archive doesn’t come back to bite either of us. This is my job on the line, Elle.”

She walked out without saying anything else.

Siobhan watched her go. “Well, wasn’t
she
unpleasant?”

I shook my head. “She wasn’t always like that.” On the other hand, she was now, and that was mostly what counted. “Fergie, Siobhan said we might have some other jobs.”

The werewolf nodded, going over to his desk and the neat stack of files waiting for him there. “A few. I don’t know if you’ll be interested.”

“If they mean that I have a legitimate reason to keep Rebecca waiting a little longer for her results, then I’m interested.”

Niall’s hands roamed over me slowly, spreading oil into my skin as they worked their way so sensuously over my back. Until he’d insisted on doing this for me, I hadn’t realized quite how tense I was. I moaned in appreciation as his fingers eased out a small knot in the muscles of my shoulders, half turning to look back at him until he turned me back to keep lying there so he could work on me.

“How did you learn to do this?” I asked. I was naked in Niall’s living room, a couple of sheets and pillows having transformed one of the tables into a massage table for the afternoon. What did it say that Niall tended to choose furniture capable of taking someone’s weight? Nothing that I didn’t already know. He was an enchanter. A vampire. Furniture designed for those occasions when you couldn’t quite make it all the way to bed simply came with the territory.

Niall’s hands kept up their beautiful, sensuous movements. “It isn’t so difficult, when I can feel exactly what relaxes you and what doesn’t.”

“It’s that easy, is it? I’m almost disappointed.”

His hands moved lower, his mouth briefly following them to kiss the center of my spine. I gasped in unexpected pleasure.

I could feel the glow of Niall’s small triumph. “People have used many words about me over the years. Never that one.”

I could believe that. So far, Niall was still clothed, and his movements had kept to what most people would have considered safe, chaste areas, yet there was still something more intimate about the simple experience of him massaging my back than there might have been with anyone else doing almost anything else.

And we both knew it wasn’t likely to stop at just a massage. “Mmm.”

“You like that then, Elle?” He placed another butterfly kiss at the base of my spine.

“You know I do.”

“Good.” His hands resumed their work on my muscles. Despite the sensuality of Niall’s movements, he really did seem to be searching for knots and tight spots to untangle. He also seemed to be finding a lot of them. “You are so tense, Elle. You are working too hard.”

I shook my head without looking round at him. “Just as hard as I need to.”

“Really?”

“Most of it’s the case for the coven. I spent half of yesterday going through pottery at the university, making sure that none of it was magical.”

“None of it was?” I could feel Niall’s interest and I loved him for that. A lot of men could have feigned it for the sake of being together, but he actually did care about every aspect of my life.

“None of it. Although I did get to snag a grad student on the way out, and had an enchantress snack, so the day wasn’t a total loss.”

I was feeding regularly now, taking small amounts wherever I could. Some days, I worried about what that meant, but I’d felt the alternative. I’d felt what it was like to be helpless while Victoria hurt those around me. If stealing occasional moments with strangers was the price for getting to keep Niall safe with me, I could pay it willingly.

“And you went to see the young woman who was hurt in the hospital.”

“Yes. Nina told me much the same things that the others did, although there was one odd thing.”

Niall’s hands stilled just for a second or two. “And that was?”

“She’s a witch. Not a strong one. A minor talent like the ones…”

“Like the ones you rescued from Victoria. It’s all right to say her name, Elle. Although it does seem to have made you more tense. Hmm, I’ll have to deal with that.”

“Oh, God,” I gasped as he did.

“It’s not just this one case that has you tense though, is it? It’s all the other ones you have taken on. Why start them, Elle?”

“The business is still finding its feet,” I said. “I wanted all the business I could get.”

Niall leaned down to kiss my ear. “We both know there’s more to it than that. Why did you really do it?”

“To annoy Rebecca, mostly. And then because it looks like these ones are more interesting than they seem. The missing dog didn’t feel like a dog at all when I tried to follow it from its home. The woman who might have a lover…Fergie followed her and she’s just going out into a field at night and staring at the sky with a telescope. The thief—”

“I understand.” Niall placed another kiss on the side of my neck. “Small, strange things are happening in the city.”

“Magical things, maybe,” I whispered back, and it was a whisper, because I didn’t trust my voice right then with anything louder.

“And you feel that they’re your responsibility?” Niall was working his way down my spine now with his lips, teasing me, moving slowly.

“Yes. There’s too much going on. I feel like some of it has to be fallout from everything that has happened in the last few months, from Victoria—”

I stopped with a gasp of frustration as Niall stepped away from me, moving into my line of sight as he slowly stripped off his shirt.

“Victoria is gone, Elle, and this city is not all your responsibility.”

“But the coven, the treaty—”

He bent to kiss me, his lips capturing mine as I looked up at him, our tongues dancing together for a moment, our power meeting somewhere between us, mingling.

“You need to take time for yourself, too. Time to forget about these things, or at least to enjoy different things.”

“I was planning to, if you ever stop teasing me.”

Niall stood up straight again. “Oh, so you want to move things along, do you?”

“I mostly just want you naked.”

Niall laughed at that. “Oh, you’ve come so far, Elle. So very far. When we first met, would you ever have said something like that?”

No. No, I wouldn’t, but then, I would never have been naked on my front, looking up at a half-naked Niall when he’d just finished massaging me in a way that made my body sing with need. Context was everything, when it came to what I would and wouldn’t say.

I watched Niall undress, and he took his time with the rest of his clothes, revealing the slender, toned perfection of his body a little at a time until he stood as naked as I was. I tried to reach out for him, but he caught my hands, turning me onto my back and gently pinning my wrists above me while he kissed me.

“I was serious about you needing to relax more,” he murmured against my lips. “Let me do this, Elle. Let me do all of it.” He took my hands, pulling them up so that I gripped the edge of the table. “Keep them there, Elle. If they move, I’ll stop, I promise you.”

As threats went right then, that was about the worst one he could have leveled at me. I didn’t want Niall to stop then. I would have done anything for him to keep going.
Not
doing anything was even simpler.

Actually, it proved to be almost impossible, because Niall had decided to make this last. Despite the fact that I was as ready for him as I had ever been, he still took his time, stroking and massaging the front of my body as much as he had the back. His hands slid along the flesh of my stomach, my legs, moving closer and closer to the places I truly wanted his touch, but not quite making it there.

“Niall…”

His half smile was almost maddening. “Patience.”

But I didn’t have any patience left. I sat up and grabbed Niall, pulling him to the table and rolling him beneath me. He opened his mouth to protest and I swallowed the sound with a kiss. I moved down his body, taking the length of him into my mouth while I looked up at him, and any complaint he might have had became a guttural sound of pleasure.

I could have taken my time with him there. I could have made him suffer as much as I just had, but that would have involved delaying the pleasure I wanted, too. So, I didn’t. I moved back up his body, straddled him, and lowered myself onto him carefully. I pinned his arms as I rode him, feeling my breasts brush across the skin of his chest, catching his lips with mine. He’d been so adamant that I should relax and let him take control, but Niall should have known better than that. I wanted this, we both did, and there was only so long I was prepared to wait.

I rode him as fast as I dared. I took him the way I wanted him to take me, and it felt simply amazing after holding back for so many minutes. Niall seemed to agree, if the sounds he was making beneath me were anything to go by. Our power pooled and shifted around us as we moved together, so that it felt like every movement was made in a sea of it. I wasn’t sure where I ended and Niall began. We climaxed in the same moment, and in that instant, it was like the whole world was rushing through me at once.

Niall’s arm was around me as I came back to myself, his body pressed tightly against mine. At some point, we’d fallen from the table onto the floor, but thankfully, it would take more than that to hurt either one of us. The sheet that had been covering the table was now tangled around us, not quite covering anything, but giving the impression that it was trying to.

Niall touched my hair lightly. “You know that Victoria is gone, don’t you?”

“Straight after sex, and you want to talk about your ex-wife?” I laughed. “I must be losing my touch.”