A Curse in Darkness by Sherilee Gray
Chapter 8
Warrick
Rage-fire rushed through my veins.I hadn’t been able to protect her a year ago, and it ate at me. The physical evidence of the pain that twisted fallen angel had inflicted on her had me roaring inside my head. The beast in me wanted that fucker alive again so I could tear him apart until he was nothing but bloody tatters at my feet.
Maddox thrashed, drawing my attention back to him and all the sick fucking shit he was saying about my dove. I opened the door. “Out in the hall,” I said to her.
“I don’t care what he says,” she said.
“I do.” Seeing those scars brought the memories back. Her body battered and bleeding, close to death. It had sunk its claws into my head. I couldn’t listen to that fucker inside Maddox talk shit about her now, not if I wanted to maintain control.
She picked up the concoction she’d just made and strode out of the room. I followed and shut the door after us, then barked at Jagger, who was standing outside to keep everyone above ground.
My lieutenant rushed off to do as I said.
I didn’t want any of my brothers seeing her naked. She was mine and I didn’t share.
Gripping the back of my shirt, I tugged it off and tossed it aside, and the little breath Willow sucked in at the sight of my chest pleased me greatly. She tried not to look, but her pretty eyes kept darting back, watching me as I toed off my boots.
Then her gaze dropped, her small body freezing, when I tugged open the button of my jeans, and my satisfaction grew. She tried to deny what was between us, but she couldn’t hide the way she reacted to me. Fuck, her scent alone would have been enough.
Her gaze darted up, and she realized she’d been caught staring and quickly looked away. She shoved down her pants, and I ate up the sight of her, freezing in place when her delicate fingers gripped the fabric of her panties. She pushed them down her legs and kicked them off as well. Her bra joined her pile of clothes next.
A snarl tried to crawl up my throat, and I bit it back. My dove was exquisite. Her skin smooth and golden, her hips wide and round, made to take a big male like me. Her breasts were full and heavy, big enough to fill my hands, and one day, they’d feed our pups.
I watched mesmerized as she scooped up some of the potent smelling oil and began rubbing it over her skin.
Mine.
My mate.
My dove.
The beast, the animal I was, the part of me that struggled to live by the rules of man, wanted to push her to the ground, wrap my jaws around the back of her neck, hoist her ass in the air, and claim her. But I was more than that; Lucifer had made it so. He had given the hellhounds he’d created control over their animal urges and instincts, tentative as it was, which meant I knew that was wrong. That my dove wouldn’t like that. So I held myself back while she ran her oily hands all over her beautiful body.
Maybe if I slipped my hand between her thighs and played with her, readied her, she’d let me…
“Stop staring and start oiling,” she said without turning around.
No, she wouldn’t welcome that either. Still, I moved close, so close I could feel the heat of her bare skin and breathed in her scent. My arm brushed hers as I dipped my fingers into the oil. Still, she didn’t turn like I desperately wanted her to, and instead worked at smearing oil over her shoulders.
I tried to focus, but there was no holding back my low growl when she smoothed it over her breasts and between the round cheeks of her luscious ass.
My cock was hard as steel, and when she finally dipped her fingers between her legs I hissed, wishing they were my fingers, that I could feel the slick heat there against my skin.
She still had her back to me, and I didn’t like that. I wanted her eyes on me. I was strong and muscled. I had a big cock. Females enjoyed my skill in bed, they liked my body.
I wanted my dove to take pleasure from the sight of it, like I did hers. If she looked, she’d know I was capable of pleasuring her, of protecting her, that I would be the best choice for her to mate with.
The animal in me wanted her approval. Craved it.
Willow was intelligent and capable, smart and beautiful. My dove was tough. And she needed to be all of those things to be accepted by my brothers as my mate. We had enemies, and my female needed to be able to fight and protect herself and our pups if necessary.
But right then, more than anything else, I wanted her delicate hands on me. I needed her to touch me. “Need your help with my back, dove,” I said.
* * *
Willow
Dammit. I didn’t want to turn around. I wasn’t sure I could do it and not ogle him like I’d already been caught doing.
“Just a second.” I finished off my leg and foot, and when there was no other reason to delay, I took a fortifying breath, picked up the mortar, and made myself turn.
Holy shit.
He was turned away from me, giving me his wide muscled back, and I took advantage. It was impossible not to. Flames from the torches lining the hall flickered over his deeply tanned and tattooed skin. Some of the tattoos looked like script, but in a language possibly known to only him and his brothers, others were images that had to be from Hell, flames and demons, hounds in their beast form. His massive shoulders tapered down, but his waist was still thick, every part of him was thick and roped with muscle. His monster thighs, bulging calves, and his ass, now glistening with oil—I swallowed—good lord, that ass. You could bounce a quarter off it.
I bit my lip harder when what I wanted to do was drop to my knees and take a bite out of one of those muscled cheeks.
Instead, I resisted, closed the space between us, put the mortar by his feet, dipped my fingers in, and straightened. I lifted my hand and paused, almost afraid to touch him, because yeah, I wanted to so damned much.
“Dove?”
I pressed my hand to his smooth skin, the oil melting against his overheated flesh. He was always hot. Heat radiated from his body like he was a living furnace. I ran my hand over his shoulder, trying to keep my movements quick and efficient, trying to keep it as impersonal as possible and ignore the goose bumps lifting under my hand, all over his skin at my touch. When I was done, I stood back. “You got everywhere else?”
“Almost,” he said and turned.
Do not look down. Don’t you do it.
I kept my eyes up and he crouched, scooped the last of the oil with his fingers, and stood again. Then he dropped that big, rough-skinned hand to his groin and worked it over his balls and cock.
My eyes dipped without my say-so. Holy shit. My gaze shot back up to his, but he wasn’t smirking like I expected. His gaze was intense, and he wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that he was checking me out as well.
“You done playing with yourself?” I asked.
“You can take over if you want.”
“I’m good, thanks.” Somehow, I turned away from him and walked back into the room. I scooped up the urn and handed it to him. “Hold this, and when I brush a gap in the salt, take off the lid, okay?”
He nodded.
“As soon as the rat shows signs of life, jam on the lid.”
His gaze slid to Maddox and he nodded again.
I grabbed more of my salt and dirt mix and laid a thick line of it in front of the door, then tossed the bag on the floor. Grabbing my broom, I walked up to the salt line between us and Maddox. Closing my eyes, I held my arms out on either side of me and started chanting the words to force the spirit out. A warm breeze moved through my hair, the mother’s gift, an ancient one handed down to my coven by one of the first witches in our family to go through the trials.
The thorny vines on my skin heated, and I knew they were glowing as I said the words of the ancient spell, repeating them, slowly increasing in volume, in speed.
Maddox thrashed harder. I could hear his struggles, the spirit fighting against it, more than a little reluctant to leave such a strong host.
I continued to raise my voice until I was yelling the words that tumbled from my lips, words I felt as though I’d said before, but it wasn’t my voice, it was the voices of generations past, witches who’d used this spell, their voices shadows, echoes of the past replaying like an old recording, adding power to mine, fuller, louder, stronger.
Maddox was roaring and growling, incoherent now.
I opened my eyes, and slamming my broom on the floor, swept away a section of the salt line and stepped back. A cold blast shot past me, and Warrick yanked the lid off the urn as I scooped up the bag of salt and threw down more, covering the gap again, sealing Maddox inside.
An icy wind filled the room, not like the last spirit, its frozen claws stinging as it passed by, the soul spinning around the room, rushing past us over and over again, desperate for a new host.
Then finally, with no other option, it slammed into the urn.
The dead rat shrieked.
Warrick slammed on the lid.