To her surprise, looking and feeling like her mother felt almost natural. As if she had a similar magic inside her just waiting to be set free.
Focused on finishing this nightmare so she could get home and be done with dark magic, she hurried to the massive front door, made of some foreign wood not found in the mortal plane, surrounded by white stone so smooth it looked like marble.
The gargoyles and house snips, adorable fae air spirits known for zapping people just for fun, guarded the front door. Upon spotting her, they waved and smiled.
“Mistress.” One particularly thick gargoyle bowed. “We are glad to see you looking yourself again. Though Kaia’s face is lovely, there is none so wonderful as yours.”
So she has been using my face to lure prey. Damn it, Mom! “Lord Ruin, you’re looking good, as always.”
He blushed in the way stone creatures do, his cheeks a lighter gray. “The lycans have been restless but tame. The vryko has also been quiet, though that one will most definitely cause trouble.”
Tame lycans meant Sabine had definitely whammied them. And a vryko? Hmm. Ruin must have been referring to the vampire. Vryko, short for vrykolakas, a tribe of vampires known for their brute strength and skill in water. What were the odds her mother would involve a vampire with ties to the water?
Great. Just what Kaia didn’t need.
But was he a prisoner or complicit in her mother’s plans?
Kaia hurried inside, past a white foyer into a white living space. Everything, from the wooden furniture to the stone tables and even the chairs and couches, was in some shade of cream or white. Bright pillows and throw rugs, with a few hand-selected art pieces, provided the only splashes of color in the place. Her mother loved a modern aesthetic.
Fortunately, Kaia felt no one nearby on this level, though the lycans dwelled below.
Descending the stairwell into the basement, she continued down a wide hallway toward her mother’s “zoo,” a large, walled-in playground filled with chains, beds, and a well appointed lavatory hidden in the back by yet another stone wall. The feel down here was medieval life meets cutesy torture chamber, with a decidedly BDSM kind of feel. She found the lycans imprisoned in silver, two chained to the wall and the other chained on the bed within reach of the bathroom. They were all groggy while snarling every few seconds but made no attempt to escape.
Annoyed with her mother more than she could say, Kaia released her glamour so she could unlock their chains. She only had enough power to use the glamour or free them, but not both.
They paused when they scented her, their expressions turning ugly.
“I’m here to release you, but only if you moon-swear to do me no harm.”
Bright moonlight streamed through a barred window high up on the far wall, and as she moved farther into the room, illuminated her presence. Upon seeing her, they did their best to stand up and threaten, but so woozy, they didn’t scare her.
The largest one sighed. “We swear not to harm you, By the Moon Our Mother.”
“Okay.” Kaia hurried to undo their chains that came apart under her mother’s magic and ignored their grumbled insults.
“I’m not her,” she said, though she knew they wouldn’t believe her. Even in their own forms, she and Sabine looked incredibly alike, though her mother had height, a bustier frame, and a head of snow-white hair. “But the White Sea Witch is coming back soon. If you know what’s good for you, you three will get out of here while you can.”
“Before the demon comes back,” the smallest of the three said. He leaned closer and sniffed her. “She’s right. She’s not the one who caught us. Different scent, but still a witch.”
The others grunted, grabbed him, and left without thanking her.
Part one, complete. Now she just had to execute part two and pray the vryko didn’t kill her for sport.
Too easily, she followed the trail of power throbbing inside the walls and took step after miserable step back upstairs and up again, toward her mother’s bedroom. Kaia hated stepping foot in the room, grossed out by the oppressive sexual hunger for pain and pleasure her mother—ew, her mom—felt deep under the skin.
Her mother might hide her real self from the world under spells, but here, where she dreamed, where she let her unconscious mind go free, Kaia could feel all the ugly covered by superficial beauty. In this one place that should have been her mother’s sanctuary.
She immediately felt guilty stepping foot inside.
To her relief, no one lay chained to the bed.
“Witch, get your ass in here,” a deep voice rumbled from down the hall.
She flinched. He sounded upset.
Tuned to the foreign energy pulsing in a bedroom down the hall, she entered and found a giant, dark-haired male with red eyes and fangs wearing nothing but a ragged and stained pair of jeans. His chest and arms were corded with muscle, his chest spattered with dried blood despite the healthy skin beneath, covering what looked like a tattoo she couldn’t quite make out.
Though not bound, he couldn’t be comfortable in those dirty pants, could he?
He snarled, “Where the fuck have you” —he added in a lower voice— “been?”
His gaze raked her, and she studied him as well. Tall, dark, and not so much handsome as fiercely captivating, the vampire attracted with a presence no one could ignore. He was just there, so much power in a raging male form. He looked more muscular than the upir she’d once seen. Delicate was not a word she’d ever use to describe him. He was brutish, with so much height and mass.
The word “fast” described him though, because he had her up against the wall, caged in his bare arms, between heartbeats. He didn’t seem to feel the cold as he stared into her eyes and smiled.
“Finally, you’ve returned.” He stroked her cheek with a gentle finger, threading his hands in her hair.
Pleased he didn’t seem ready to bite her, she relaxed.
She wasn’t prepared for the kiss that came next.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Orion had missed the witch more than he’d thought. Having lost sense of time, he only knew he’d talked to Mormo at some point after biting the woman. She’d kissed him a few times, left him to have sex with lycans—which he only knew because he’d smelled the connection upon her return—then ordered him to wait for her without causing a problem.
Orion never made problems. He solved them, and he’d do anything for the beauty he’d promised to protect with his life. For some reason, that knowledge had troubled him, but then he’d rationalized the worry away. Who wouldn’t want to protect a woman who looked and smelled like her?
He’d slept a good bit while waiting, not bothered by anything but her absence.
And here she was, looking sexy yet demure, smaller than he remembered but even more mesmerizing. So fucking gorgeous and neat in a navy sweater and skinny jeans, a bit less grand than the way she’d been dressed before. But he liked it. She looked more approachable, a woman he wanted to savor, kissing and touching and fucking until she couldn’t walk.
The kiss lit him up from the inside out, not with any bitterness or fire, but with a drugging pleasure better than the finest of bloode wines, so it took him a moment to realize she hadn’t responded, stiff in his arms.