Twice, Lorelei pulled over to bask in the sensations she drew from Alex. The bond between them grew ever stronger. She could feel the difference. At this point if she had the chance to confront the man who’d attempted to bind her, only to have Alex come along and screw it all up, Lorelei wouldn’t have the words to thank him enough.
* * *
“Oh God,” Onyx moaned with a smile, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” She’d lost track of how many times he’d gotten her off, and time in general. If this went on further, she’d probably lose track of her identity.
“You okay?” Alex asked. He kissed her cheeks, her forehead, her neck.
“Hell yes,” Onyx grinned. “I feel amazing. You’re amazing. You’d better not be a one-time-only kind of guy, mister.”
“No way,” Alex huffed. “You’re not even entirely naked yet.”
Her grin became sly. “We’ll have to save that for next time, then.”
“Deal.”
“Much as I don’t want you to go anywhere,” she said, “I need some water.”
“Oh! Sure. I’ll get it.” He pulled away and got off the bed. After a two-second detour to the bathroom he came back with a towel for her. “Don’t know if you’d like this or not,” he said a bit shyly before heading back out of the room.
Onyx blinked. She hadn’t expected him to be that thoughtful. Not after all that exercise. She rose up from the bed as he walked out, using the towel only momentarily but wanting to look at him again as he headed down the stairs.
She liked the way he looked, especially to the spiritual sight that she’d learned as the first lessons of her Practice. His aura revealed compassion and humility and purity of spirit. There were black marks, too; everyone had those. Yet by and large his were small, most of them even insignificant. He had the bright, vibrant aura of a genuinely good person.
Onyx smiled at him as he headed down the stairs, and as she looked for things unseen by ordinary people, she saw something meant to go unseen by anyone.
She was tall and dark-haired and beautiful. Gorgeous enough to make Onyx feel plain…except for the twin scars on her head, just below her hairline. The woman smiled as Alex came down the stairs toward her, saying nothing to him but watching as if he’d seen her. He didn’t stop on his way to the kitchen, but she followed with a smile on her face.
She had a tail. Onyx saw it stretching insubstantially through the woman’s short business skirt, swaying with a relaxed air. Onyx wasn’t supposed to see the woman at all. She was sure of that. But moreover, only a Practicioner of magic could have ever seen that tail unless the woman willed it so.
Onyx knew that wasn’t just a woman down there. She jerked back away from the staircase before the woman looked up. Her mind racing, Onyx rushed back into the bedroom, quickly gathered her clothes, and then locked herself in the bathroom.
* * *
“Wonderful in ways I would not have expected, Alex,” Lorelei whispered into his ear. He stood at the kitchen counter pouring water out of a pitcher while she slipped up behind him, moving her hands over his chest. “Our bond must still be strengthening. This was much more than a rush of vitality and healing for me. You didn’t have just her. You had me as well…or, more accurately, I had you just as she did. It was breathtaking for both of us.”
“I still can’t believe this is happening. Can’t believe you’re okay with it. Can’t believe she’s okay with it,” he murmured. “I was afraid I was delaying plans for the weekend. I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
“Alex,” she whispered, “never, ever hesitate on my part. We share this.”
“I should go back up there,” he said.
“Go,” Lorelei consented with a smile. “Take your time with her. I’m enjoying this as much as either of you. Just…take me the moment she leaves,” she added with a wink.
* * *
It was the simplest, most basic of purification spells. If she’d been subjected to something serious, it probably wouldn’t work. But she had to try something immediately. First aid, if nothing else. For that, she always carried a vial of sea salt in her purse.
Onyx brushed a small pinch of salt across her forehead and threw it into the sink with the faucet running. She did so again with salt across her heart, then again just below her belly. She murmured the words, trying to keep her voice down.
With this done, she looked in the mirror. She didn’t feel any different. Her body was still riding high on the rapture of her afternoon, but this revelation threw her mind and her heart for a loop. If anything had been altered about her, if she had been manipulated through some supernatural means, it went beyond her ability to break right now. That, or she hadn’t been affected at all. One or the other.
His aura shone with benevolence and life, but there was an invisible woman with a devil’s tail connected to him somehow.
She didn’t want to leave him here. It wasn’t right. She had to get him away from her-from that-and make sure he was okay. Unless, somehow, he was part of this, and everything about him was a deception beyond her means to detect…
Stop. That doesn’t make sense, she told herself. That he could fake his aura was a pretty big stretch to begin with. Everything about him and his home stated flatly that he knew nothing of any Practice she could name. Further, if he could run that tight a charade, or if that woman could, then she shouldn’t have been visible to Onyx at all.
Whatever was going on had begun well before Onyx got here. He was hale and hearty. Illness or fatigue would have shown in his aura. Any drain in his soul would have been visible as well. This was bad, but it wasn’t an emergency. At least, not for him.
Onyx looked in the mirror. She had another minute or so before her absence became suspicious. She could already hear him coming up the stairs.
Rummaging around in her purse, Onyx pulled out a tiny pill bottle filled with snapdragon petals. Murmured words in Greek and Hebrew mingled with English as she placed a petal under her tongue. She hoped the universe wouldn’t hold this one spell against her. Deception was not a pleasant way to go and tended to incur a threefold payback, but all she wanted was a smooth and inconspicuous exit. Lying wasn’t high on her list of social skills. She needed this boost of guile. Onyx rolled the petal up from under her tongue, swallowed it, and took a deep breath before opening the door. She kept a pinch of salt at the ready in her right hand.
“Hey,” she said softly, finding him sitting on his bed again. He offered her a glass of water, which she accepted with her left hand. She drank it down with hardly a pause.
“You’re dressed,” he observed. She heard some slight disappointment there, but he didn’t want to guilt trip or push her. That much was obvious.
“Yeah. I hadn’t realized the time. I need to go. Got places to be soon.” A lie. Not a big one, and arguably only a half-truth, but not the way she wanted to handle things. Then again, she didn’t want a demon in his house, either.
“You’re sure? I haven’t made you uncomfortable or anything, have I?” His concern was plain. It only made her melt a little bit more inside.
“It’s not you. It’s nothing bad,” she lied again. Looking at him like this, trying not to think of what they’d just done for one another and seeing that he could clearly perform yet again made leaving difficult. Part of her wanted to ignore what she’d seen and stay in his bed even longer.
But she couldn’t. That was unthinkable now, at least until she had a chance to cleanse and to think. Onyx looked at him, then pulled him close and kissed him. Her right hand slipped behind his head and let the salt fall into his hair. She broke off the kiss, leaning her forehead onto his, murmuring something very softly.