Witches' Waves (5 page)

“You? Complicated? Does that mean you slept with him or her more than three times before one of you got restless?”

Before he could explain just how complicated this was, how they
had
only been together a few times and he'd bolted because they both wanted more and he was terrified, they were interrupted. Ten-year-old Erin, one of his older sister Maeve's numerous offspring, scampered over into the garden. “Uncle Deck? You've got people here to see you.”

He looked up and saw the last person on earth he'd ever expected to see again, holding the arm of a ghost-pale, blonde girl.

Deck sifted frantically through his brain, trying to find the right words or, failing that, any words at all.
“What are you doing here after I sent you away?”
popped into his head but it wasn't right because he meant something more along the lines of
“How did you know I didn't mean it, that I just needed more time?”

Elissa solved the problem of what to say by shouting in something very unlike her usual would-be-sultry-if-she-wasn't-his-cousin voice, “You!” pointing her finger at the interlopers like a character in a silent-movie melodrama.

“I see you've met Kyle,” Deck said drily. “He has that effect on people.”

Chapter Five

As the accusatory voice vibrated through Meaghan's bones, she felt a seizure coming on. “Lay me down,” she whispered urgently, but Kyle was already easing her onto the grass. To her dismay, someone else—someone who was probably the woman who yelled at her, because those hands were small, though strong and calloused—was helping.

The vision surged over her, and for the first time she knew what it felt like: like being sucked under by a great wave, with no hope of rescue. The ocean frightened her less, though. The ocean might have killed her, but it loved her at the same time. This just hurt.

Her body arched. Her hair stood on end. The stench of blood and a child's panicked cries filled her brain. But for some reason, it wasn't as bad as it normally was, not as painful, not as all-encompassing. She was still herself inside the vision, retaining some control.

Suddenly she knew who the woman was, the one who'd called out to her as if she knew Meaghan and had reason to hate her. “Child of five bloods is…your child, I think.” The words came out hard and harsh, fighting against the vision. “In danger. Agency knows her. Knows her name and what she is, anyway. And she's here. I can feel her. You must…protect her. She matters…in some cosmic way…not just because she's a kid.”

The vision fought through her words, filling her mind with a family's anguish, a child's terror, death.

And hints of what the Agency wanted with the baby, the destruction they could force from her innocence and power.

Meaghan reared up, started to scream.

Two sets of arms wrapped around her, easing her back to the ground. Two male bodies, moving almost as one, lay down, one on each side of her as if to protect her from the voices in her head. One was Kyle. She recognized his ocean-and-fur presence. The other was a stranger, tall, solid, and even though he was a stranger, safe in a way she couldn't explain. “Shield, dammit,” a strange male voice said. He sounded angry but Meaghan knew he was just afraid. “Shield. Work with me, babe. Shield.”

“I can't…” she started to say, but suddenly she found she could. Her rudimentary shielding that kept out the buzz of other people's minds never stood up to the force of the visions, but this time a wall of water, flexible but impermeable, rose up between her and the horrors she'd been forced to experience. Hidden inside those walls, her body lost some of its rigidity. Her hair flopped down again like it was supposed to.

And she transported into another vision, but this time it was the delightful one of making love with two men in the ocean.

Like most of her visions, she'd forgotten the details when she snapped out of it, but now they came back, sensual and vivid.

How had she not realized that Kyle was one of the two men, the one she'd recognized as nonhuman?

This deep-voiced, hard-bodied stranger who felt vibrant and liquid and right in her head, was the other.

She sank farther, not fighting anymore, letting sensation take her.

She didn't have time to enjoy it, though, because the woman was there, pushing the man who wasn't Kyle aside to kneel beside her. “What about my baby?” the woman demanded, her voice hoarse as if she'd already been crying for days. “I saw you in my baby's mind. I thought you were in league with Chenier or Shaw, but you're no sorcerer. Victim of a sorcerer, maybe. How does the Agency know about my baby?”

Meaghan snapped back to normal consciousness so fast it hurt, as if the woman's voice netted her, then pulled her to shore. Her skin tingled, and her nipples and her sex ached with arousal, even with sorrow and horror crashing over her again. She took a deep breath, cut herself off from her traitorous body as Shaw had taught her to do when she was little and the neurological problems began throwing her balance off and causing random shooting pains.

Calmer now, distanced from her pleasure-drugged body and able to focus on what she needed to remember, she said, “It's my fault and yet it isn't. I tried to die, but I already told them without knowing it. I must have, like I told Shaw about the lion man. But the lion man wasn't magical, not like the vision told me, just another dual who could have been turned into a soldier for the Agency. Except he got away and that pissed Shaw off, and this baby…they think they can use her for terrible things, and she's just an infant and…Kyle said he knew people who could help protect the baby but he didn't say the baby might be here. That's bad. Really bad.”

Something bright and terrible edged the woman's voice. “No. That's good. That's very good. Let those fools try to attack us at Donovan's Cove, at our own hearth and home. I beat them before with only Jude, Rafe and someone else's dead at my back, and Jude was weakened and Rafe didn't know what he was. Now Rafe is in his full power and the whole family, even the ghosts, are here. Let them try to take our baby.”

Jude.
Meaghan knew that name. That was the lion man's name, the one she'd accidentally betrayed.

The one who had somehow been able to show her how she'd been used.

Waves of power were crashing off the woman—cool and spring scented, erotic and sensual, raw and dangerous. Meaghan shrank back. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “The Agency figured out how to manipulate my visions. They took me when I was little. Shaw…I trusted him. He was like my father, and then he became my lover. But the lion…your Jude…he was different. I saw what they were doing to him that time. I woke up. I thought things would get better after Shaw died, but then I saw your baby…”

To her horror, Meaghan started crying again. The woman's power still pushed at her, battered her, refused to let her retreat. Bright, terrible, fiercely angry. Maybe she would kill Meaghan, end it.

“Leave her alone!” Kyle yelled. She thought he shoved at the other woman, from the way he moved.

The air shivered, and everyone went very still. Meaghan smelled cut grass and burning cinnamon, and she had a feeling that those pleasant smells might signal something terrible was about to happen.

Then the other man moved, jumping to his feet. The way his muscles shifted sparked on her skin, despite how upset she was. “Don't, Kyle,” he said, his voice rumbling like thunder. “Elissa's changed. I don't know what she can do anymore. And it's her daughter we're talking about.”

The strange smelled subsided.

“She's telling the truth, Elissa. I can still smell traces of Shaw on her spirit.” Someone had snuck in to join them, moving almost silently, but his voice came from high above Meaghan and the voice was deep and booming, but sensual.

A lion's voice.

She knew that voice. She'd heard it in her visions. Heard it defiant, holding out while Shaw tried to break him. “You're safe! I'm so glad. I prayed and prayed, but I didn't think anyone would listen to me.”

“The Powers always listen. Sometimes Trickster answers and things get strange, but it works out in the end.” That was yet another male, seemingly standing very close to the first. Like Jude's and Kyle's, his voice felt like fur on Meaghan's skin, but this guy had something else going on, an uncanny energy she couldn't place.

Rafe. The dual with magic. The one she'd seen in the vision that led Shaw to Jude instead.

Slender arms drew her in. A cloud of soft hair and magic surrounded her. “The Powers work in mysterious ways,” the woman—Elissa, she'd been called—said. “If it wasn't for your visions getting us mixed up with the Agency, Jude and I wouldn't have met Rafe or have Jocelyn.”

“But I…”

She found herself pulled against a female body. She tensed, then realized Elissa was just hugging her. “The guys believe you, so I do too. Shaw got to you when you were a kid, and he was one of the two most powerful sorcerers I've encountered or even heard of. And Trickster must love us all very much. I can also sense the other sorcerer, Chenier, has his spells on you too. Because the two of them just
had
to be working together.”

“Yeah, and we helped take down both of them.” The lion—Jude—again. “Go us.”

“Shaw got into my head,” Elissa admitted, “and I've been trained to fight off mind magic for my whole life. He could even get into duals' heads, and sorcery doesn't usually stick on duals. The other sorcerer, Chenier, had a fae ally, so you didn't even need to get anywhere near him to be affected.
It wasn't your fault.
”

“So…what is a child with five bloods?” Meaghan asked nervously.

“Simplest explanation: humans and duals usually can't interbreed, but Rafe is part manitou, and since manitou are fertility spirits, we were able to have a baby. Jocelyn carries all three of our genes. It's a manitou thing that I don't even begin to understand and I'm a geneticist as well as a witch. Plus Jocelyn has fae heritage from the Donovan side, and Rafe and Jude are two different species of dual. Hence five bloods, which is apparently a big draw for creepy sorcerers.”

“But what does she
do
?” Meaghan knew she was better off not knowing, but she couldn't help asking.

Elissa laughed, and though it was strained, it was also sweet. “She's just over six months old. We know she's a seer…”

“Poor kid!”

“Figured you'd understand. Fortunately it's not a strong power and it seems to be fading as she gets older. But other than that, we have no idea. We're not even sure what species she is, technically speaking.”

“What she is, is adorable,” Jude's deep voice said. “So do you want to meet her?” He took Meaghan's hand, helped her to her feet.

“I warn you,” Jude added, his big voice now as amiable as Garrett's. “Our Jocelyn's a dangerous creature. She'll wrap you around her little finger and you'll be forced to do her bidding. Luckily, at her age, her bidding's just
play with me
.”

Meaghan followed, not sure what hit her, other than the sheer force of personality and magic embodied in the tiny, intense Elissa and her husbands.

But she was starting to believe that maybe Kyle's confidence that these people could help wasn't misplaced. She knew now who Elissa was: the witch who, with the help of two duals, had exposed Shaw's secret soldier project in New York.

Which would make her two fur-voiced companions the ones who'd killed Shaw. That should bother her far more than it did.

Maybe it was just another one of the ways she was a broken freak. Or maybe the broken part was that she thought she
should
mourn the bastard because he'd sometimes created the illusion of caring about her.

As she walked away with Elissa and her men, she heard the other man, the one Kyle had started to introduce her to, say, “Kyle, what the fuck were you thinking bringing her here?”

Meaghan didn't even cringe. But she wished the stranger had vented his anger on her instead of Kyle. It wasn't Kyle's fault she was a freak.

Chapter Six

“I was
thinking
that she was on the run from the Agency and the most powerful witches in the country might help her. She's telling the truth. I can smell it. So did your feline friends there.” Kyle's voice was calm, almost jovial, but Deck could see how he was quivering with poorly repressed tension. “And by the way, it's nice to see you again too.” Kyle blew him a kiss, but his playfulness seemed like a thin veneer over a taut core of worry and anger.

“She's telling the truth as far as she knows it, but what if there's more going on here than she knows about? Even I don't want a full-on war and I'm the crazy Donovan who gets bored enough to conjure sneaker waves and surf on them during lightning storms. What if she has a tracking spell on her?”

Kyle coughed drily.

“Right. There probably
is
more going on than she knows. That's how the Agency operates.” Declan scratched his head. “But we may be okay. Elissa hugged her.”

Kyle leered, but it looked like an automatic response. “Yeah, and my brain went right to the fun bad place, seeing the pretty redhead hug the cute blonde, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“Elissa came to her full powers late, within the last year or so. I'm not sure what all she can do now. But she's always had a lot of red magic and because of that, she's touch activated. If there was a powerful spell on that girl, Elissa would know it, even if she couldn't tell what it is, and since she said something about magical echoes, but no actual spells…”

“Either we're okay or Elissa's doing something sneaky, which probably means we're okay too, but whoever she's sneaking against isn't.” Kyle hesitated. “Not that I know your cousin, but a red-haired woman being stealthy is dangerous, even if she's not a witch.”

Declan nodded, not saying anything.

He was too busy staring at a point somewhere just past Kyle, trying not to stare at his lithe body, trying not to meet his brilliant dark-brown eyes.

Kyle had come back to Donovan's Cove when he was in trouble, had come to him—not the rest of the family, but him. Declan hadn't completely destroyed the trust between them when he'd forced Kyle away. And the otter's restless energy and his aura—clouded, but streaked with the bright scarlet of desire—showed he still wanted Declan.

As Declan wanted him. Lord and Lady save them both. A refugee from the Agency dropped on their doorstep, Elissa and her husbands suddenly home with a child of unique and dangerous lineage, enemies possibly sniffing around their home—and all Deck could think about was grabbing Kyle's wrists, dragging him into the garden shed and fucking him until they were both raw.

And then casting a spell on himself so he'd never send Kyle away again, no matter how scared he got.

He mentally shook himself out of images of hard cocks and tangled bodies. “Are you and the girl…involved?” He made himself say it, knowing as he did that Kyle could smell his desire and turmoil, or, failing that, at least pick up how hard it was to say the words, how little he wanted the answer. The way Kyle looked at the fragile blonde, touched her so protectively, spoke volumes. Hell, he'd tried to attack Elissa in her defense—not smart, but sincere.

Kyle shook his head. “I'm attracted, but Meaghan's about this far from snapping…” he held up two fingers, almost touching, “…and by that I mean this far on the other side after she already snapped once. I pulled her out of the water after a suicide attempt. I honestly don't know how she survived as long as she did. She'd been swept a long way and the cold should have killed her even if she didn't drown.”

Then a strange look passed over Kyle's face. “Meaghan smells like you, like the ocean's part of her. Could she be a water witch as well as a seer?”

Something in Deck twisted. It shouldn't bother him that this waif shared one of his powers, especially if it might have saved her life. But it did.

The water affinity was part of why he and Kyle connected.

“I didn't look at her with witch-sight, but that would explain why she didn't drown or die of hypothermia.” And she must be powerful too. He wouldn't want to spend much time in the Pacific without his wet suit—the water magic would keep him alive, but he'd be damned cold—and the girl had neither body fat nor muscle to insulate her. “Water magic? I know you find that…attractive.” Powers, why was he jealous? He'd told Kyle he couldn't have the kind of relationship Kyle wanted. If Kyle had moved on, that just made him smart.

Smarter than Deck, obviously.

Anger flared in Kyle's dark eyes. “Trickster's tits, Deck, she's been in an Agency compound since she was little. I'm the first guy she's ever met who wasn't using her as a fucking lab experiment. Yeah, I'm intrigued, but I'm not going to go there. How the hell would she know if she's really interested or if I just gain by comparison to sadistic Agency freaks?” He snorted. “She can't even see my manly charms. She's blind.”

But, demons and devas, Declan could see his manly charms. The short, dark-brown hair, as sleek and lush as his otterside's pelt, dark eyes a man could drown in, cutting cheekbones, strong, lean body that quivered with erotic tension. He couldn't see the well-muscled chest and back, the near-perfect abs, the angular lines on the sides of Kyle's hips or the big uncut cock. But he knew those “manly charms” too. Knew them and had remembered them in explicit detail every moment he'd been alone, ever since he was fool enough to tell Kyle he needed time.

Kyle was one beautiful man. But that serious, thoughtful tone behind the flippancy so natural to an otter dual took him from beautiful to damn well irresistible.

With each step forward, Declan told himself no. But he kept walking. It didn't help that Kyle met him halfway.

Declan froze at the last second. He'd rejected Kyle once, run like a rabbit from something he realized too late he wanted. Just because Kyle was still attracted didn't mean he'd want to take the chance of being hurt again, especially not with the lovely, mysterious Meaghan depending on him.

But when he opened his arms in invitation, Kyle was in them, pressing his slender, sinuous body against Declan's more solid one, drawing him down into a kiss.

Almost as soon as they touched—certainly as soon as their lips met—Declan's cock snapped to awkward attention.

He needed. Lord and Lady, he needed. Something about Kyle made everything feel all right, made him feel like whatever challenges they faced, whatever the Agency might do, they'd be able to handle it.

He was pretty sure it wasn't anything deep and metaphysical. He was on such a hormonal high that everything seemed like it was fine.

Kyle was in his arms, Kyle was kissing him, Kyle's energy was caressing him everywhere and Kyle's hands were doing their best to do the same. Declan slid his own hands down to cup the other man's firm ass. With a muffled groan, Deck ground their crotches together. Arousal, sharp and hot and almost painful, shot through him.

Deck's red magic was as squirrelly as his other powers, sometimes as erratic as a teenage virgin's, sometimes nearly as strong as Elissa's, though a lot more chaotic. Right now it was running so high the world turned red and crackled with energy, and they both had all their clothes on. Instinctively, he shunted the power the two of them were raising to strengthen Meaghan's shields. The poor girl was almost as naked as a normy and more psychically open than his cousin Portia. At least Portia didn't have seizures when she telepathically tapped into someone else's thoughts.

Then Kyle's hand snaked into his pants and Deck was glad that the red magic could do its thing without his brain involved now that he'd directed it, because his brain and his body both wanted to focus on Kyle.

It was all he could do not to start undressing in the garden, even though it was early summer in the Pacific Northwest, cool for naked shenanigans.

He'd forgotten that duals didn't feel cold the way humans did—and otters spent a lot of time in the chilly waters of the Pacific.

When Kyle groped at the zipper of Deck's jeans, Deck stopped feeling cold too.

“I think all the time about sucking you,” Kyle whispered, his voice harsh and throaty. “I dream about it. Even when I'm not wordside.”

Deck tried to find words for all the reasons this was a bad idea.

But with Kyle's hands stroking his quivering dick, all Deck could say was, “Me too. I dream of your mouth and my cock. I just plain dream of you.”

Kyle grinned, his lips moist and red, his mouth a little toothy to be human. Then he sank to his knees—and he really sank, not the semi-awkward scramble or flop most humans would manage, as if Kyle surrendered fully to the moment without any thought for his knees exposed in board shorts, or possible rocks and mud—and released Deck fully from his jeans.

The air was chill on Deck's newly bared skin, but Kyle's mouth was hot. Dual hot, hotter than a human's, and he used it like it had no purpose other than pleasuring Declan Donovan's cock.

Before he lost his mind completely to sensation, Deck set up a quick-and-dirty keep-away spell on the area. Kids would decide they wanted to play somewhere else. Adults might guess why they had this urge to be anywhere but the back vegetable plot, but would respect the wish for privacy. Akane and the duals living with or visiting the family would be oblivious to the spell—it took a lot to magic a dual and even more to affect an immortal kitsune like Akane—but with any luck they were busy.

He felt the spell rise up, an earthen wall surrounding a waterspout.

Then he gave himself up to the wet heat of Kyle's mouth.

Demons and devas, even Kyle leaning against him was erotic. Deck couldn't remember ever being as aware of his partner's energy as he was now, twining over his skin, caressing places Kyle's mouth and hands couldn't.

Kyle's body was hot, and his mouth was hotter, but his energy was deliciously cool. Blue and brown, ocean and shore, calming the earth, containing the lightning, dancing with the water of Declan's magic, balancing it. Kyle felt different from another water witch. The water energy wasn't flowing through Kyle. It
was
him, on a very deep level. Water energy and a predatory yet playful force that had a vibrant color Deck couldn't name.

Pleasure beat inside Deck. One hand cupped the back of Kyle's head. Deck couldn't help curling his fingers into Kyle's dense hair, as if Kyle was his to control—which he suspected Kyle wanted at the moment, from the way he went so readily to his knees.

He thrust into Kyle's mouth at the thought, unable to contain himself, and Kyle's energy flared in joyful response.

With his other hand he gripped Kyle's shoulder for balance, since all the blood seemed to be draining away from his brain. Even Kyle's muscles moving under his long-sleeved tee-shirt added to Deck's arousal, as if the palms of his hands had become an erogenous zone.

Kyle's tongue teased at the slit of Deck's cock. One hand fondled his balls just the way Deck liked. Then Kyle engulfed him, taking him deep. The muscles of his mouth and throat worked, his tongue lapped at Deck's shaft.

And Kyle's other hand worked between Deck's cheeks so his fingers touched the puckered opening of his ass.

It was almost too much, after such a long time with nothing but dreams of this man. For a fleeting instant, Deck managed to focus on the flow of magic and energy between him and his playmate to prolong his pleasure.

Then that clever finger infiltrated his ass. Deck shot into Kyle's mouth, unable to stop, unable to do anything but cry out something that he'd meant to be Kyle's name, but didn't sound like English or Gaelic.

Head swimming from the explosive force of the orgasm, Deck wobbled on his feet and wished he'd taken the time to get Kyle to his place, an unoccupied guesthouse or anywhere there was a bed.

Of course, if they'd taken that extra time, he might have talked himself out of the blowjob, and certainly out of what he did next.

Which was to draw Kyle to his feet and hold him close, glorying in the feel of Kyle's energy surging over his skin.

Damn it, he was in love with Kyle. He was pretty sure it wouldn't work out in the long run. Shouldn't there have been magic dancing if he and Kyle were meant for each other? But having Kyle back, finally holding Kyle against him, touching him, even kissing the top of his head, made Deck feel contented and complete, instead of like the odd man out, the fuckup in his family.

This was a trap. Kyle didn't mean it to be, but it would be. Deck would try to live up to Kyle's expectations, like he used to try to live up to his family's until he realized it was impossible. It might work better with Kyle because Kyle might think he was more than he was, but Kyle wasn't expecting him to be fucking Superman.

Unlike his father, who was pretty much the magical equivalent of the Man of Steel, rigid standards, perfect abs and all, and who couldn't figure out why Deck, of all his five kids, couldn't live up to him.

He could hear Desmond Donovan in his head now, telling him he was being irresponsible, leading Kyle on,
using
Kyle, who wanted a real relationship, when all Deck could offer, until he got his magic balanced and his head screwed on straight, was a fling. He opened his mouth to apologize, though he wasn't sure what he was apologizing for. But what came out of his mouth was, “My place. Now. Need to fuck you until I know I won't send you away again and you know not to listen if I try.” Mixed in with the raging lust was a profound sense of relief that someone lost had come home.

He wasn't sure if Kyle was the prodigal or he was.

Kyle said, “Do you have rope? Because if I'm not tied up, I'm not responsible for how much furniture I break. Not to mention skin. I've been craving this way too long, and you know otters get a little crazy during sex.”