Marked By Magic by Christa Wick

Epilogue

Slowly backingout of the nursery, Esme slid one foot into the hallway, then the other. On the room's ceiling, a brilliant constellation of glowing stars twinkled, the illusion cast by Oscar before he finally fell asleep after two stories, a dusting of good-night kisses and one long hug.

A few feet from Oscar's bed, Hemera remained awake in her crib, a halo of witch light visible in her eyes as she stared up at the ever shifting ceiling.

Esme tiptoed down the hall to her own room, a faint glow visible at the bottom of the door. Knowing that the hinges needed oiled, she whispered it into silence, then pushed her way into the room. Denver looked up from his laptop, a pair of wireless earbuds feeding him sound.

He took the earbuds out, but didn't shut the laptop.

Right, she thought, there was a lot for them to talk about. Envoys from clans outside the United States had been arriving and leaving the New York clan for the last few months. The crystals were always "ringing," as she liked to say, with requests for help.

"Something wrong?" she softly asked, sliding into bed and putting her stone-cold feet against his heat-radiating shin.

A shiver ran through him. Wrapping his arm around the back of her shoulders, he pulled her closer, then handed her one of the earbuds. As she inserted the earbud, she had just enough time to note and lament the fact he had pajama pants on before he got to the point of what was bothering him.

"They're doing it again," Denver grumbled, one finger tapping the computer's touchpad to launch a video of a dark-haired woman sitting at the anchor's desk of a television station in Albany.

"Kathy something," Esme murmured as the woman began to speak.

"Today marks the one-year anniversary of what experts are calling America's own Tunguska event, in which a little over twenty-eight square miles of forest and man-made structures were simultaneously leveled. At the epicenter was a sinkhole with the collapsed remains of a once grand mansion."

The anchor paused to stare dramatically at the camera before continuing.

"And just like the actual Tunguska event…an event that leveled over eight hundred square miles in nineteen-oh-eight, scientists are still searching for a cause."

Denver paused the video.

"By searching, she means they are launching a multi-national joint task force," he pressed. "Not just a few investigators from the ATF or the geology nerds from the USGS, like they did when it happened. They are already setting up a tent city to house weapons scientists, NASA, and a bunch of other people with access to equipment we can't imagine."

"Scientists," she echoed.

"Yeah," he said, tapping at the touchpad again until a picture appeared of a bespectacled man somewhere in his early thirties wearing a shirt that looked like he had slept in it. "He's some wunderkind, high-energy-density researcher…an expert in plasma fusion something or other. I don't like this guy."

Snorting at her mate, Esme leaned closer to the screen.

"Is it because he's kinda cute?" she teased.

"Love, I'm serious."

"So am I," she answered. "Looks like he could be Tavi's type. And, even if he isn't, Tavi is almost every man's type."

"You want to put her in as a mole?" he asked. "What if he already has some tool that can measure—"

He abandoned the question as Esme buried her face against a pillow and failed miserably at trying not to laugh.

"Okay, can I stop talking to my mate for a second and talk to The Nakari?"

Esme straightened in the bed, closed the laptop and put it away.

"As All-Mother, I can tell you, we cannot go forever without detection. But technology isn't just the realm of humans. We have every tool they have, and then we have magic on top of it."

"We don't have their numbers," he pressed, rolling along the mattress to take a dominant position with his wolf pushing at her.

She pushed back with equal force before curling her arms around his neck.

"It won't be all of their numbers allied against us," Esme soothed.

He shook his head. "We couldn't stand up to just a tenth of them. Think what some of these world leaders and scientists would do if they could get their hands on a few witches, let alone get their hands on Iris, Hemera, Oscar…or you."

"I have," she sighed, bringing her hands up to cradle her head. "I don't just think them, I see all the potentialities that stretch before us. I have seen us at the top of the mountain and at the bottom of the pit. I see us off this planet and colonizing another. I see mankind so augmented and enhanced by things like nanotechnology that we are no threat to them."

Using her magic to roll them until she was on top, Esme straddled Denver's hips and braced her palms flat against his chest. She knew she could pin him there, her strength as The Nakari unmatched by even the strongest male shifter. But the bedroom, in the safety of Denver's arms, with his hard body driving deep into her, was the one place she craved the experience of yielding.

"Look, love," she said, lowering her torso, her breasts pressing against him. "We will get close to this Mr. Plasma Fusion Something-Something. We'll intertwine his fate with ours and find which threads to snip and which to strengthen. We have that power again and it's stronger than ever before."

He executed a flip, his strong hand curling mid-turn to protectively wrap around the back of her skull. When they landed, her head was against the pillow. He trailed his fingers down to her shoulders, his gaze heating as he assumed a greater measure of control over her body.

Esme resisted with an upward bump of her mound against his erection. Groaning, Denver buried his face against her neck, his lips and tongue and teeth working in concert to force a deep moan from her. When it escaped, he stole the sound with a kiss.

She parried the move, her hands surfing down his sides to find the band of his pajama pants. She pushed at it, then growled in frustration.

"String is knotted, love," he chuckled. "Double knotted. A veritable Gordian kn—"

She stopped him with a lift of her arms, her fingers twirling, the tips looping and unlooping invisible strings. Certain she had the pants untied, she launched another attempt to disrobe him.

Denver caught Esme by both wrists before she finished lowering her arms. Her eyes rolled back, the heat of his wolf beginning to grind harder against her. She exhaled, witch light illuminating her moist breath. Denver sucked it in, then licked at her lips.

"I want to touch you," she protested.

Abandoning her mouth, he whispered a fresh tease against her ear.

"And I want to eat you. Who wins?"

"Uhm, duh," Esme laughed, his control of her body making her giddy enough to forget the day's fresh worries. "In that scenario, we both do, right?"

He nodded, his topaz gaze beginning to glow as he slid lower. His mouth coming even with her breasts, he stopped. Seeing the peak of one nipple, he covered it with lips and tongue, wetting the fabric.

She moaned, a quiver shooting through her. Denver moved to the other nipple. Intense need slicked her thighs, vibrated her hips.

Still sucking at her nipple, he pushed the hem of her nightgown up. He wasn't as patient with the panties shielding her sex from him. He pushed the gusset aside, rubbed his thumb against her clit, his fingers gathering to sluice into her wet depths.

"In me," she moaned, her touch jumpy and disjointed as she again tried to maneuver through the tangle of Denver's arms to push his pants down.

"Eating you, remember?"

She exhaled a quivering groan, her breasts, stomach, and hips rolling against him as he surfed down her body. Strong hands parted her thighs and then he took his first lick of the night, his tongue curling around the bottom dangle of her clit.

Her wolf growled.

"It's not nice to tease the All-Mother."

He lifted his mouth from her flesh, his voice rumbling with raw passion.

"If that's true, love, then you need to prepare this sweet pussy for me to be anything but nice. I'm going to be downright cruel with all my licking and sucking."

His fingers slid into her.

"I'm going to be so not nice that the room will glow with how hard you come for me."

Biting back a sharp cry, she rode his fingers, a whimper lodged in her throat from how badly she craved his touch.

"You will glow for me, Esme," he warned before his lips took possession of her flesh once more.

In and out, his fingers pumped. Two of them at her tightest, then a third, her body warm and wet and buzzing. Then the fourth. She trembled like the ground beneath the rush of an avalanche, her muscles straining, her hips grinding.

The cocky bastard really would have her glowing before he got anywhere near the point of feeding his deliciously large dick into her.

Her movements growing wild, Esme thrust against him. Lips, tongue, fingers. Widening the part of her thighs and digging her heels into the mattress, she thrust harder. Riding, riding, riding. Lips, tongue, fingers, lips, tongue, fingers…thumb.

She exploded the moment he gently penetrated that other tight entrance. Eyelids she had locked shut peeled open to reveal the starlight swirling in her gaze. Her voice thundered in her chest as she strained to hold back a scream of pure ecstasy.

He drove her body harder, his hands and lips and tongue merciless as her release kept her wet for him. He wrung a second climax and then a third before succumbing to his own need, his pants pushed down his hips, his cock spearing into her, thick with desire.

Mesmerized, he stared down at Esme as his release joined hers.

His lover.

His mate.

His queen.

THE END

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