Sylvia Day - Spellbound

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Masters asked.

Max stepped back and gestured the other man inside. Across the room, he conjured folding screens to hide the bed where his kitten slept. Still, the scent of her pheromones was heavy in the air, and Masters wasn’t immune. The warlock shifted on his feet, his shoulders rolling back.

“Mine,” Max warned in a low rumble.

“She’s the reason I’m here.” Masters faced him. “Word’s spreading fast about the vanquishing today. Jezebel says you took Powell out with a single hit.”

“So?”

“So everyone knows your Familiar helped you. I’m not the only Hunter thinking about taking on a Familiar now.”

“It has its benefits,” he conceded. “But Familiars are a helluva lot of work. If it were anyone but Victoria, I wouldn’t think it’d be worth the effort.”

“Yeah, I can smell how much work is involved.” Masters’s smile faded. “Some are asking if you’re powerful enough now to challenge the High Council.”

A chill ran down Max’s spine. The Council wouldn’t like that. They took all threats very, very seriously. If they viewed him as one, they’d take steps. And Victoria’s augmentation was what gave him an advantage.

“I wouldn’t go to the trouble if I could,” he drawled, careful to hide his disquiet. “I’ve got everything I want right here.”

“You do. Maybe others don’t.”

Max crossed his arms over his bare chest. “Don’t bring revolution into my house.”

Masters’s lips curved wryly. “Why not? You brought it into magickind to begin with.”

Victoria’s stomach knotted at the news Gabriel Masters passed on to Max. She feigned sleep, as she rarely slept deeply while napping, and decided she wouldn’t let on that she knew unless he told her directly.

She wondered if he’d anticipated this, if he’d kept her from hunting with him to avoid just this sort of thing. He wouldn’t want to upset her, even if explaining kept them from fighting about his decision to exclude her.

Max showed Gabriel out and then padded over to the bed. She heard him, smelled him, felt soothed by his presence the closer he came to her. The bed dipped as he sat beside her. His hand stroked down her side.

“Kitten,” he said quietly, bending toward her and pressing his lips to her shoulder. “I have to go.”

When he straightened, she rolled to her back and looked up at him. “Shouldn’t you get some sleep? Or will you be home soon?”

“The sooner this hunt is over with, the better.” His gray eyes softened as they looked down at her. “Then we’ll go away for a while. Someplace tropical, maybe, where you’ll be naked all day. Or snowbound, where I could spread you out in front of a fireplace.”

She caught the hand he had resting on her hip and squeezed it. “Sounds wonderful.”

“Do you want to stay here? Or should I take you back to the apartment?”

“Home.” She sighed. “I have work to do. It was insane at the hotel today.”

“Can you work from home the next few days?”

“Sure.” She hated working away from the office, but she wasn’t going to bitch. Max had enough on his mind.

“Let’s get cleaned up, then,” he murmured, a soft smile on his lips.

Thirty minutes later, Victoria felt a semblance of equanimity. Max had washed her from head to toe, his dexterous fingers kneading her scalp and every muscle. He was so good to her. So good for her.

He dressed her in a simple set of pajamas, choosing to secure each button himself rather than with magic. “There.”

“Here.” She lifted onto her tiptoes and kissed his jaw. “And I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”

A rough sound escaped him and he pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her. He held her for a moment, then they were home. The abrupt introduction of sax music jolted her. But the bigger shock came from the naked blonde in a leather collar who was strolling into the living room by way of the bedroom hallway.

“Max,” Jezebel purred, stretching as if just waking. “I thought you were kidding about bringing your kitten home to play with us.”

Victoria’s gaze was riveted to the MAX engraved in the black leather circling the witch’s neck and to the marks on her breasts that were perfectly laid out and aligned in Max’s recognizable pattern.

“Jezebel,” Max growled. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“You, darling.” She smiled and cupped her breasts, offering them up. “Any way you want.”

Vicious magic surged within Victoria, thick and black and hot. It roiled and singed her hands, itching to be freed. “Bitch,” she hissed, “you’d better vanish real quick.”

“I told you, darling,” Jezebel said, licking her lips as she tugged on her own nipples. “Familiars don’t play well with others.”

Max stalked toward her and Victoria lost it, unable to let him put his hands on another woman. Especially a naked woman wearing a collar with her man’s name on it.

Her hands thrust forward before she thought about it, magic shooting from her fingertips in arcs of green lightning. The hit lifted Jezebel from her feet and sent her flying backward down the hall.

“For fuck’s sake!” Max’s head whipped toward Victoria, revealing a thunderous scowl. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Obviously you did when you brought that trash into my house!” she shot back, her hands fisting against the urge to strike out again.

A Mack truck slammed into her chest. At least that’s what it felt like. She was tossed onto her back and sent skidding into the sofa. Victoria screamed, her chest smarting and pajama top smoking from the direct hit.

“Stop!” Max roared, stepping into the middle of the hallway as a barrier.

Jezebel pounced and leaped over him, spinning midair to land on her feet, her hair flowing around her like a cape. Victoria was even more nimble, her catlike reflexes kicking in with a vengeance. Max lunged, his arms wrapping around the witch from the back, and poof. They were gone.

Unreasonable fury coursed through Victoria along with a rush of magic the likes of which she’d never felt before. She trusted Max, believed in him, was sane enough to know he couldn’t come at her the way he had all evening if he’d gotten off earlier with someone else.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t spitting mad that he’d brought his ex into their house, an ex who was bat-shit crazy and hurting for an ass kicking.

“Max!” she yelled. But he was gone.

Seething, she powered off the stereo and stalked through the house, searching for any trace of Jezebel. The rage grew when she found her and Max’s bed mussed and smelling like the witch’s perfume. It smelled like something else, too. Something smoky and slightly acrid. She tore off the sheets, shredding them with claws she hadn’t realized had extended.

She was running through all the things she had to say to Max when he returned, growing angrier with every minute that passed, when the wards around the apartment jingled with warning.

“You want more, witch?” she muttered, dropping the sheets and heading toward the door. Her palms started itching again, reminding her of the shot she’d taken before. Her magic had never manifested as lightning arcs of power previously. She needed Max to help her understand that. And a clearer head.

Gods, how much had this hunt affected them?

She reached the front door and realized the threat was behind her. The hairs on her nape stood on end and she pivoted, shifting to her feline form to make less of a target. The windows crackled with the energy surging from outside, and she shook off the clothes that were puddled around her paws and raced to one, leaping onto a console table to get a better look.

Eyes darting, she searched the skyline, seeing nothing to combat but feeling the pull of magic. It pierced her chest where the wound still throbbed, forcing a shift into a human form against her will. She fell from the console, back arching, magic flaring in a surge of power that shattered the windows.

A black cloud poured through the breach and solidified beside her as a man. Copper-haired, with eyes so dark they appeared black, he radiated a dark power that sent goose bumps racing across her bare flesh.

He knelt beside her and she found she couldn’t move, could barely breathe. The place on her chest where Jezebel had struck her with magic burned as if she’d been hit with acid. It ate through her in agonizing darts, spreading throughout her body.

He smiled. “Relax. It won’t last long.”

The pain hit her heart and she cried out, her muscles seizing. Then she mercifully lost consciousness.

The moment Max materialized in Jezebel’s home, he shoved her away from him, his palms burning from the touch of her skin. She was feverishly hot, her eyes wild. The deep gash by her shoulder from Victoria’s strike didn’t seem to register at all. And the curve of her lips was so crazed it gave him chills.

He waved a hand to clothe her in a robe.

“Max.” She shook her head. “You didn’t used to be this uptight. Clearly your Familiar isn’t keeping you happy.”

“You don’t want to make an enemy out of me, Jezebel,” he warned. “I suggest you think of me as a fond memory and stay the hell away.”

“But we’re drawn to each other! I know you feel it, too.” She stepped closer, her hand extended as if to touch him.

And he did feel it. Enough to take a sharply indrawn breath. The call of like to like was strong, but it wasn’t sexual. It was magical.

He met her halfway and yanked aside the material covering her wound. The motion bared her breast and made her gasp with excitement, but his attention was solely on the gash in her flesh that didn’t bleed and was dark not because it was cauterized but because her blood was tainted.