Love Bites (2 page)

No,
her fear hissed
. Stop it, Morgana. You can’t take the chance.

Not with her demons.

*   *   *

A
Celtic-pale redhead strutted past, clamps swinging from her generous breasts. They looked damned painful, judging by the swollen red nipples they gripped. Heat rushed into Percival’s groin at the thought of capturing another woman’s nipples in such clamps . . .

“God, I’d love to put a pair of those on Morgana,” Marrok murmured, saying exactly what Percival was thinking.

Snorting, Cador took a swig of his Coke. “She’d geld you with a fireball.”

“Yeah, but it’d be worth it.”

As the clamped girl jiggled past Morgana, the witch’s eyes slid to the girl’s bare breasts, then directly to Percival’s face. Her spring-green eyes darkened with need. His cock hardened to its full length in a searing liquid rush.

In the middle of a fucking mission to keep a werewolf from eating more women.

And it hadn’t even been the first time tonight. The raw eroticism of the club’s atmosphere had obviously shot Morgana’s concentration all to hell. Even worse, the effect was contagious. He and his knights seemed to be suffering too. Except in their case, the focus was Morgana herself.

Which wasn’t surprising. During the years they’d worked together, Morgana had been equal parts temptation and frustrating pain in the arse.

True, most of the time she was an invaluable addition on any mission. Percival, Marrok, and Cador had worked with a number of witches over the centuries, but Morgana was the most powerful of them all.

She was also as fearless as any male warrior, and damned near as good with a sword as one of the Knights of the Round Table.

What’s more, Morgana never admitted defeat. She’d do whatever it took to succeed, refusing to yield to physical or mental exhaustion. She pushed herself so hard that she’d won the respect of all three knights, even Cador, who personally disliked her. Percival had seen her keep casting spells to defend the team when she was so badly wounded he was surprised she was even conscious. Again and again, she’d proven she was willing to die for them—as they, in turn, would die for her.

Which didn’t mean she couldn’t royally piss them all off.

For one thing, Morgana only went on the most tricky and dangerous missions, and insisted on leading most of those. She steadfastly refused to bow to any authority but her own. If Percival tried to assume control, usually because things had gone to hell, her reaction was often bitchy in the extreme.

That wouldn’t drive him half as mad as it did, except his dominant instincts insisted she was hiding a submissive streak. At times she seemed to be deliberately bratting—the BDSM term when a submissive tried to earn a punishment from her dominant by acting out like a bratty child.

Except in Morgana’s case, it was worse than obnoxious behavior, because she sometimes gave him and his team painful magical jolts.

The powers given to witches and vampires complemented each other; vampires couldn’t work magic beyond self-healing and shape-shifting, while Majae weren’t as physically powerful as their counterparts. That meant a vampire couldn’t overpower a witch’s spells, just as she couldn’t overpower his strength.

A Maja could, however, use her abilities to give a vampire a nasty jolt if he forgot himself and tried to take her blood by force. Most Majae were careful not to abuse that power, but Morgana never seemed to hesitate. Percival had sworn he’d one day give her bare arse a swat for every zap she’d dealt him and his team.

A woman cried out from one of Club Penitent’s dungeon rooms, her voice spiraling high with a blend of arousal, pain, and pleasure. Perhaps from the application of nipple clamps or a riding crop or a demanding kiss.

For the second time in less than a minute, Morgana’s gaze slid back to the three knights.

Percival’s temper began to steam, burning all the hotter because he was as angry at himself as he was at her.

Passing his thumb over the heavy gold enchanted ring on his right hand, he activated the spell that allowed them to communicate during missions.
“Get your head out of your cunt and on the fucking job, Morgana. If one of these women dies because of you, I swear to Merlin I will bend you over the Round Table and flog you with a buggy whip!”

“You forget yourself, Lord Percival,”
she replied in that cool contralto voice of hers. “I
lead this mission.”

“Then lead it,”
Percival snarled,
“and quit turning it into fucking amateur hour.”

A white-hot stiletto of agony stabbed between his eyes, so savagely intense it almost tore a gasp of pain from his mouth. He bit it back.

“Goddammit Morgana!”
Cador growled in the link, “’
Rok and I didn’t do anything. Why hit us?”
Morgana’s spell must’ve caught the pair as it traveled through their mission rings. Morgana made no reply; she’d evidently closed communications.

“Sorry,” Percival growled.

Cador grunted and took another deep swallow of his Coke, auburn brows dipping in a frown. “I don’t like the way this is going. I’ve never seen Morgana so far off her game.” He glowered. “I’m beginning to wonder if we should work with her again. We may have reached the point of diminishing returns.”

“Bullshit.” Marrok glowered at him. “Name one witch with as much raw power as Morgana le Fay. I’ll admit she can be a pain in the arse . . .”

Cador smirked. “Sometimes literally.”

“. . . But we’ve never failed to achieve a mission objective when we worked with Morgana. That’s not always a given when we work with other witches.”

“You know, it doesn’t have to be just one Maja,” Cador pointed out. “Two or even three . . .”

“Might be equivalent to Morgana’s power, but they wouldn’t have her experience or skill in magical combat strategy.” Percival rattled the ice in his glass impatiently. “Nobody is as good in a magical fight as Morg. Except maybe Kel, and he’s a dragon.”

Cador pursed his lips, considering. “Gwen’s pretty damn good.”

“True, but Arthur is hardly going to let us have Gwen, is he?” Marrok leaned in, his jaw taking on a familiar stubborn jut.

As the two knights began arguing about which Maja would make a better addition to their partnership, Percival’s gaze drifted back to Morgana. He’d known the witch fifteen centuries now, years of desperate combat, furious arguments, and steely friendship. She’d been driving him insane for most of that time.

Centuries ago, the four of them had been among the first twenty-four people to drink from Merlin’s Grail. The potion it contained had magically transformed them all. King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table had become Magi—vampires, in other words. The twelve ladies of Camelot’s court, including Morgana and Queen Guinevere, became witches, or Majae.

In the centuries since, those twenty-four had become ten thousand, as their descendants joined them in the battle to protect humanity against its own self-destructive impulses. Collectively they were called the Magekind, sworn to use their impressive abilities to hunt those like the magical killer who was their target tonight.

Today they all lived in Avalon, an enchanted city of immortals located in the Mageverse, a parallel universe where magic was a universal force like gravity or electromagnetism. Which was why that universe’s version of Earth was inhabited by everything from fairies to dragons.

This
Earth, meanwhile, was home to werewolves like the one they were hunting today.

Though most werewolves were basically decent, this one was a thoroughly nasty bastard. Over the past two months, seventeen women had vanished from nightclubs around the country, only to be found the next day as piles of gnawed bone. He’d evidently
eaten
them.

The mortal authorities had yet to realize what was actually going on. Because the victims’ bodies had been reduced to skeletal remains so quickly, law enforcement had assumed they’d been dead much longer than they actually had been. This made identification basically impossible. Police needed some idea who a victim might be in order to obtain dental records to compare skulls to, and they’d excluded anyone who’d been missing less than a month.

Unlike the police, however, Percival and his team had Morgana. Last night the witch had a vision that some kind of magical predator was abducting, murdering, and eating women. Women who’d been taken from nightclubs. Merlin’s Grimoire—an enchanted talking book that was the magical equivalent of a supercomputer—had produced articles from newspapers around the country dealing with skeletal remains said to be the victims of animal attacks. When Morgana described an image from her vision—a hand holding a whip outlined in red neon—Grim had identified it as the logo for Club Penitent.

Which explained why the most powerful witch on the planet was dressed in a red corset, matching thong, lacy stockings, and high heels. The costume displayed every gorgeous inch of her elegant body, long, toned legs, and full breasts—and made Percival’s dick sit up and beg.

She also looked like just the sort of submissive the killer liked to hunt. Morgana played bait the way she did everything else: to the hilt, prancing around on those crimson stilettos, drawing the eyes of every straight man in the place, whether dominant or sub.

Percival couldn’t blame them for drooling. The witch had a long-boned, elegant face with a narrow nose, full lips, and delicately chiseled cheekbones. Her large eyes were a green so vivid, they reminded him of spring leaves, and her black hair fell in a silken waterfall of ebony curls to the small of her back.

All in all, an irresistible target for the killer.

Which was why the three knights were undercover as sexual dominants. If the killer was a werewolf, as Morgana believed, she’d need the backup. Werewolves were not only eight feet of fangs, fur, and claws, they were invulnerable to magical attacks. That would leave her with no way of defending herself; she’d be almost as helpless as the mortal victims had been.

True, Morgana was stronger than a human, not to mention good with a sword—given fifteen hundred years of experience, she should be—but that might not be enough to let her fight off a monster. Percival, Marrok, and Cador, with their vampire strength, would more than balance the scales. Considering what the killer had done to those seventeen women, the fuzzy fuck deserved everything they could dish out.

The bastard couldn’t even claim to be a victim of animal instinct. Unlike the movie version, real werewolves were no more driven to murder than real vampires. This prick was just a serial killer, fanged and furry or not.

“Morg’s got another nibble,” Marrok said.

Percival tensed as the strange dominant approached Morgana. He was a handsome man, tall and blond, with blue eyes so piercing the color was evident all the way across the room. Dressed in black jeans and a navy blue polo shirt, he looked broad shouldered and muscular as he loomed over the witch, though she was not a short woman. Percival figured he must be six-one or six-two. Just her type; Morg liked them tall. He leaned down to speak to her, his expression hooded, sensual.

Under the table, Percival’s hands curled into fists.

Morgana looked up at the man, sweeping an assessing look from feet to face. She said something and turned away, her body language dismissive.

The big man froze, going expressionless. Then he nodded stiffly and walked off.

“Aaaaand another one goes down in a rain of flaming wreckage.” Cador flashed a cynical grin and lifted his Coke in a mock toast. “Morgana le Fay—body of a Victoria’s Secret model, personality of a rabid polar bear.”

The witch glanced toward their table, then quickly away again. Her cheeks darkened.

Percival knew why, too. Normally Morgana could watch an orgy without turning a hair, but in a place like this, given the submissive streak he suspected? He’d be willing to bet if he came up behind her, stroked a hand down the delicate curve of her back, put his lips to her nape and caressed her with his fangs . . . she’d cream that pretty thong. Which explained why her cheeks had been going cherry red all night.

The woman would be the death of him yet.

Cador straightened, eyes narrowing as Morgana glanced hastily away. “Did she just blush?”

“Appeared that way to me,” Marrok drawled.

Both men turned and looked at Percival, who glowered back. “What?”

Cador put down his glass with a thump. “You know what. Percival, you need to do something about this thing you’ve got going with her.”

“There is no ‘thing.’” Percival gritted his teeth so hard, they creaked.

“Don’t play stupid,” Cador snapped. “You can’t pull it off.”

Marrok leaned forward and directed a cool, level gaze his way. “She wants you, Percival. She’s wanted you almost as long as you’ve wanted her. And it’s time you quit fucking around and claim her for the sake of our collective sanity.”

“Morgana doesn’t want me—she wants a bloody giant lizard.” Percival curled a lip and sipped his drink, only to grimace as he realized it was nothing but half-melted ice. He gestured their waitress over, wishing he could order something with a bit more kick; by law, New York BDSM clubs could only serve soft drinks. “I’m afraid I don’t measure up.”

“Soren’s not her lover.” Cador sprawled back in the booth, eyeing him. “Soren’s just her scaly, shape-shifting fuck buddy, and well you know it.” He was also Dragonkind’s ambassador to Avalon. The pair had been on-again, off-again lovers for the better part of a decade.

Yet Percival would bet his enchanted sword she’d never submitted to her dragon lover. Or, for that matter, any of the others she’d dallied with, even knights like Galahad. Certainly not the way she’d always seemed to tremble on the edge of yielding to Percival.

One day, he swore, he’d push her right over—and catch her when she fell.

M
organa wished Percival would stop watching her with his eyes burning with that hooded heat. She wasn’t sure if the emotion was lust, or anger over that jolt she’d given them.

Either way, she really shouldn’t have zapped them. It was a blatant misuse of her power, even if the spell did nothing worse than give the knights headaches. It was no more acceptable for her to hurt them with her magic than for them to misuse their vampire strength against her.

In fifteen centuries, she’d never seen Percival turn his power against an innocent, not before he’d become a vampire, and not since. His sense of honor wouldn’t permit it. He’d sworn to protect the helpless, and that’s exactly what he did.

Morgana, though . . . Whenever she felt backed into a corner, it was if a switch would flip somewhere in her brain, and her ghosts rose again to torment her into doing something she’d regret.

Even today, after so many centuries, she heard Mordred’s voice breathe low and deep with that chilling, stomach-churning note of seduction.
“When Arthur’s dead, you’ll be at my mercy. No one will care what I do to you. They’ll be too busy seeking my favor . . .”

“Stop it!”

“I’ll do everything I ever fantasized about, and you’ll be helpless . . .”

“Stop it stop it STOP IT!”

“It’s no more than you deserve. After all, you let that priest do it to me, didn’t you?”

Gritting her teeth, Morgana forced away the memory of big hands clamping around her arms with bruising force, the hard crack of a fist against her cheek, the explosion of light in her head, her own high-pitched cry of pain.

Another man’s face rose in her memory, twisted with lust, fevered eyes glittering in sick excitement. Father Bennett spoke in a voice pitched higher than her son’s velvet baritone, but edged in the same vicious malice.
“You may as well admit your crimes, witch. We all know what you are, what black perversion you hide beneath your beauty. Confess, and seek my mercy!”

Stop it! They’re dead. They’re both dead. They’ve
been
dead.

She’d worked so hard to slay her demons. Yes, it had been bad the first three or four decades, but as she’d put her first century behind her, she’d learned to ignore those black memories. She’d often gone years without thinking of either of them, though Mordred’s birthday could bring it all back.

But then things had . . . changed. The last decade had been a difficult one for the Magekind, as they’d found themselves fighting everything from demons to dragons to werewolves who were immune to magic.

And Morgana, who’d thought she had everything under control, found she controlled nothing at all. Especially not herself. As her control frayed, it became all too tempting to strike out with her magic against anyone with the bad luck to rouse her ghosts. Including Percival and his team.

That lack of control, of honor, was one of the things she most despised about herself. Especially since she was surrounded by those whose sense of honor was so acute.

For fifteen centuries, the Knights of the Round Table had been considered the very embodiment of honor, even by those mortal storytellers who knew nothing of who they truly were. The same bards portrayed Morgana as the villain of the tale. In their songs, she was the witch who’d given birth to Mordred after an incestuous union with Arthur. Mordred, in turn, had led a rebellion against the king that plunged Britain into the Dark Ages. The songs the mortals sung bore little resemblance to reality, yet the bones of the truth were there.

The poets had been right when they’d said Mordred was Morgana’s son with the High King from an incestuous union. What they hadn’t known was that Morgana and Arthur had been teenagers when the boy was conceived, chance-met strangers. It was only much later that Merlin told them Arthur’s father, King Uther Pendragon, had raped Morgana’s mother, a Druid priestess.

In retrospect, that revelation had explained a great deal Morgana had never understood about her childhood. Her mother had always treated Morgana with a certain frigid distance. Duana, a Druid priestess, had only shown any interest in her daughter at all when it became obvious the child had a natural talent for healing. Even then, Duana had subjected her to constant stinging criticism of her attempts to master Druid herbal lore.

Morgana had never understood why her mother treated her so coldly, until Merlin’s revelation. Duana was a tall blonde whose lovely face was a soft oval, while dark-haired Morgana’s features were a more delicate version of Arthur’s strong, angular face.

And Arthur, she’d been told, looked exactly like his father.

Every time she looked at Morgana, Duana must have been reminded of Uther Pendragon. Yet her mother had never told Morgana she was a product of rape, probably because of the cold pride that was so much a part of the Druid priestess’s character. If she had, history would have followed a very different course, for Morgana would have never knowingly slept with her half-brother.

As it was, when Morgana was nineteen, Arthur fought a battle not far from the temple. Morgana was one of the healers called out to tend the wounded, and ended up treating Arthur’s best friend, Lancelot. She’d saved his life—and Arthur, who at seventeen had already been a skilled seducer, had taken her to bed.

When she’d returned, her mother had taken one look at her and known—probably thanks to the Sight—that she was pregnant. Duana had demanded the father’s identity. When Morgana told her, she’d recoiled in revulsion and driven her daughter from the temple that was the only home she’d ever known. “Take the contents of your cursed womb, and get from my sight!”

But she hadn’t said why, not even when Morgana had tearfully begged to know. Penniless, the girl had ended up taking shelter in a village not far away.

Which, tragically, had proven to be the home of a certain Father Bennett. After Bennett’s death, the village’s elders had sheltered mother and son—possibly out of guilt as much as anything else—until Mordred was ten. That was when Morgana decided to travel to Camelot to seek the position of royal healer.

Arthur had taken one look at Mordred and promptly realized he was his son. The childless royal couple greeted them with open arms.

After nine years as Arthur’s heir, learning he was the product of incest was the final straw for Mordred. From then on, he’d seemed to see himself as cursed, even evil. It was as if the knowledge gave him permission to ignore any sense of honor and decency Morgana, Arthur, and Guinevere had ever taught him.

But then, maybe he’d always felt that way since suffering the less-than-tender attentions of Father Bennett. In any case, her sweet, sunny little boy had grown up to be a twisted, vicious man.

“I’ll do everything I ever fantasized about, and you’ll be helpless . . .”

Just as the poets wrote, Mordred had gone on to lead a failed rebellion against Arthur. The king had ultimately been forced to kill him. Morgana had felt only relief at her son’s death; he would have destroyed them all.

Today, on what would have been his birthday, the memory of Mordred paced at the edges of Morgana’s mind like some bloody Shakespearean ghost. Her cheek seemed to sting from the spectral weight of his fist, just as his remembered threats made her stomach twist in revulsion.

She’d known today would be bad the moment she woke this morning.
Maybe I should have stayed home.

But no. The team needed her.

Percival needed her.

She started to glance toward him, only to freeze as she sensed a wave of dark, boiling magic rolling through the bar toward her. Morgana’s eyes narrowed as she went on high alert. Reinforcing her magical shields, she cast a probing spell. Something was definitely coming, something that felt almost oily in the weight and texture of its evil. There was no doubt about it: Their quarry was here . . . or something just as bad.

Pivoting, Morgana swept her gaze across the bar just as a wave of force hit her, vicious and alien, almost punching through her magical shields. She had to catch the edge of the bar to keep from being knocked right off her stilettos. With an effort, she shook off the effects of that dark attack and focused her attention on the club’s entrance.

It seemed the murdering werewolf had arrived. Now they just had to kill the furry bastard . . .

Except . . .

Morgana frowned in puzzlement. She knew the feel of werewolf magic from painful experience.
Claws raked across her skin as the wolves closed in, their eyes glowing orange with bloodlust . . .

The taste of this creature’s power was different, much stronger than anything she’d felt before from any other wolf. A tsunami of malice and magic that was both alien and all too familiar.

“That’s
not
a werewolf,”
Percival said over the mission link, echoing the thought that had made her heart skip in dread.
“That’s a dragon.”

“Oh,”
Morrak groaned,
“we’re so fucked.”

They were both right. Heart pounding, Morgana started toward the club’s entrance, pushing through the laughing, dancing crowd, grimly determined to intercept the killer.

The creature who strode into the bar a moment later didn’t look like a murderous shape-shifting dragon. He was just tall enough to draw a woman’s eye in a crowd, lean and muscular as an Olympic swimmer in a well-cut gray suit that suggested its wearer had both money and taste. Morgana could see how an unwary woman might follow him to her death, deceived by his smoldering
GQ
looks and artfully tousled black hair.

But the gaze he swept over the crowd was so intensely predatory, so cruel, that Morgana found herself jolting toward him, desperate to divert him before he picked out some mortal woman to victimize.

“Morgana, watch your cover,”
Percival murmured through their enchanted mission rings.

She caught herself, camouflaging her alarm with a seductive smile and her best hip-rolling, leggy stride. As she sauntered over, the dragon’s gaze flicked to meet hers, piercingly blue and cold enough to inflict frostbite. The creature smiled, his lips taking on a sensual curve. “Why, hello,” he purred, his voice deep and rumbling as he extended his hand.

Quickly reinforcing her magical shields, Morgana reached to accept the offered handshake, even as she prepared a spell blast. “And hello to you. I . . .”

Inhumanly powerful fingers clamped around hers hard enough to grind bone on bone. A wave of psychic force rolled from his hand to hers, blasting through her attempt to shield as if it were tissue paper. The dragon’s attack slammed into her mind hard enough to buckle her knees.

“Morgana!”
Percival’s furious mental bark sounded distant as she fought to shake off the dragon’s attack.

Though her thoughts felt swathed in cotton, she realized she was lucky she’d shielded, even if the psychic barrier hadn’t protected her completely.
Otherwise I’d be dead now.

Blinking at the spots that filled her vision, she caught herself against a barstool. Marrok appeared at her elbow to slide an arm around her waist. “Are you all right?” the big knight demanded, lifting her to her feet and steadying her when she swayed. His tone sharpened. “Morgana, answer me. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Scanning the crowd, Morgana realized the dragon was nowhere to be seen. Neither were Percival and Cador. Oh, hell, she must have lost consciousness, or damned close to it. “Where’s the team?”

“Tracking our scaly friend through the club, trying to make sure he doesn’t kidnap anybody. He headed for the scene rooms as you went down. Percival told me to make sure you were okay.” His dark gaze searched her features, his worry evident. “Are you?”

“I’m
fine,
dammit. Where did they go?”

“This way.” Marrok turned and bulled through the crowd, half-carrying her as the other patrons stumbled back from his overwhelming strength.

The last of the fog from the dragon’s attack lifted, and she realized just how bad the situation was. If they weren’t damned careful—and lucky—everyone in Club Penitent could end up dead. Especially if the bastard shifted.

Forty feet of dragon in the middle of a nightclub was a prescription for tragedy.

Another thing: if somebody got cell phone video of an honest-to-
Lord of the Rings
dragon and posted it to Facebook, the paranormal cat would be out of the bag. Discovering magic actually existed would change human society in ways no one could predict.

Morgana shuddered. She’d been through witch hunts before. She had no desire to experience the twenty-first-century version.

We have got to lure him outside if we want to get this clusterfuck back under control.

Luckily, Morgana could shift too. She’d been practicing draconic combat techniques with both Kel and her lover, Soren. She was reasonably sure she could handle herself in a fight with the dragon—
if
she could lure him away from the club and its potential hostages.

What would be preferable was if she could enlist Kel and Soren’s help. Both shifters were veterans of draconic combat who’d be far more capable of taking out the killer than she was.