In the Company of Witches (Arcane Shot #2)

But was she willing to try, if he was?

Shutting her eyes, she turned herself over to her sex demons’ care. Tried not to worry that her boyfriend being away from her would give him the chance to decide he liked someone better. Or worse, prove he’d only been killing time with her. Goddess, it was crazy. Did never having been in a relationship, a real one, mean she had to start from the very beginning, go through all the adolescent feelings she’d never had a chance to experience? If that was the case, she’d just cut her own throat now and save herself the humiliation.

Her staff was being too damn quiet. “What? Why aren’t you all talking?”

“Actually, we’ve said a couple things to you,” Li said. “You’ve been lost in your head.”

More than that, the rest of her dozen staff had arrived. Some were ringed around the pool, dipping their feet into the water’s flow. Saul was lounging on one of the tanning chairs.

“I’m sorry.” Raina sighed, reaching up to stroke Li’s face. “Are all of you all right? I know it’s been a bit unsettling, having a Dark Guardian among us.”

“We’re fine. He’s not so bad. We’ve all dealt with scary evil before. He’s scary…predictable. He tells you his rules, and he doesn’t change them.”

“So you don’t think he’s evil?”

“No.” Gina looked puzzled that she’d even asked. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with him if he was. Unless you had to pretend to protect us. You don’t act like you’re pretending.”

Just that simple. And it was true.

“Though the point of good faking is no one knows,” Li teased. “And Raina can convince anyone of anything.”

Amused, Raina relaxed a little more. Sometimes she forgot how much she enjoyed her staff. “So what do you think, Li? Am I pretending?”

“No. The only time I’ve seen you pretending is when you were acting like you didn’t want him.”

“Wanting and liking are different things.” Raina pressed her lips together. “I do like him, sometimes, but I keep looking for his agenda. Anything he wanted to take, though, he could have already done it and been gone.”

“Except what he wants is you.”

She lifted her gaze to Saul. He’d brought the softening oil they all used to make their skin pleasing to their clients. Li shifted out of the way so he could apply it. They knew she liked Saul’s massages the best, because of his strong but gentle hands. She wondered what kind of massages Mikhael gave. Or if he’d like a massage. He wouldn’t want one from Saul, no matter how good his hands were. Her lips curved at the thought. One thing she didn’t get from Mikhael was a bi vibe. Her tall, dark and brooding male was pure hetero.

“He’s chosen you,” Gina agreed. “You can tell.” She sat on the edge of the pool, her feet in the water. “He wants you.”

“It’s an intense affair; that’s all. He’ll move on eventually. I’ll enjoy him until then.”

“You don’t say anything about you moving on. Which means you’re just protecting yourself. You want him, too. You miss him. You’re worried.” Saul rubbed her foot, massaging the arch in a way that had her eyes crossing. “Your aura has gone into full blood-mating mode.”

Oh, hell. “It’s a misfire.” But as soon as he’d left, a heavy ache had developed in her chest, a sense of loss strong enough to be painful. She’d rationalized it, tried to push it off, but it didn’t change the throbbing agony behind her breast bone. It was even projecting off her skin where an incubus could see, because the males could detect when the females had chosen a mate. Succubi didn’t usually do that, or if they did, it was temporary. For a witch who happened to be half succubus, it might be different.

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

Helping her up without comment, Saul guided her to the salt spring. She closed her eyes, laid her head back on the edge so Min could rub her temples with eucalyptus and lavender. “He’s a Dark Guardian. Would you all really want him hanging around?”

“He says he doesn’t pursue demons like us, because we’re not causing harm. I believe him.” This from Ana. “He is scary, but he doesn’t lie.”

“Yeah,” Saul said dryly. “Right after that, he said—pleasant as you please, and with a heavy Russian accent—Those who cause harm, I hunt down and tear apart, like paper dolls.”

Mikhael, you ass. But they were right. He was savage, dangerous…and brutally honest. This is different for me, too. He’d said that, and meant it. So maybe he didn’t know what to make of it any more than she did.

“Tonight’s the full moon,” Marisa said. “Are you going to do your midnight thing?”

“We’ll see how the bachelor party goes.”

“We can handle it.” Saul nodded to Li, Luke and Aiden. “You’ve taught us how to simmer things down if needed, to monitor the energy patterns. We’ll watch over the girls.”

“Are you all becoming all grown-up and responsible on me?”

“We wouldn’t risk shocking your system like that. You might short-circuit.” Luke had gotten into the salt spa across from her and now let his foot slide along her knee, trying to worm his toe between her thighs. He pulled back with a laugh when she splashed him. Then he sobered. “We can handle it, Raina. Go do your thing.”

“It recharges you,” Marisa said. “We know how much energy this takes. In fact…” She glanced at the other girls. “We’ve been talking. We know we’re not witches, but we know lots of people who aren’t born with that talent do energy work. With us being sex demons, it should make us more capable at it than them, right? We think you should start teaching some of us how to more actively help you protect the house, protect the clients. Let us share the load.”

Raina straightened, studying their uncharacteristically somber faces. “Where is this coming from?”

“When you went to town, you looked happy, excited,” Li said. “You don’t look like that. Ever. It made us all think about it. I’ve been with you for six years, and you’ve never had a boyfriend, or a date. Don’t get me wrong.” He looked around him. “Your life doesn’t suck. You have an awesome place, and you enjoy life. But you should be able to go into town to see a freaking movie without it being a major deal. You should be able to go out on a date. You should be able to fall in love, if that’s what you want to do.”

Gina slid into the water to cuddle under her arm, while Ana did the same on the other side. When Luke met her gaze, her usual prankster was serious, a trace of sadness in his eyes. “Every one of us owes our lives to you, mistress,” he said quietly. “You’ve given us your love and protection, as well as kicked our asses when we needed it. It’s time for us to do the same for you. We haven’t done much for you except make you a boatload of money. We can do more than that.”

Raina chuckled. “Don’t underestimate how tolerable that boatload of money makes you all. I saw an armoire in town I really want.” She shoved at Luke’s shin with her foot, but then looked around at all of them. “You’ve done more than that. You’re my family and, as someone reminded me not too long ago, our kind needs family. Thank you. All right, I’ll think about sharing the load. And I will go out into the forest tonight. But I won’t be far if you need me.”

“You never are,” Li said. He was kneeling behind her on the lip of the spa. Now he bent, sliding his arm across her front to embrace her. The others took his cue, enveloping her in a very reassuring group hug, one that helped ease that ache…somewhat.

MOST OF HER EXPERIMENTS WITH SPELLWORK AND potions, or manipulations of power to increase her skills in the Craft, were done in the cellar or her room. However, on full-moon nights, when she could, she went to the forest. Her staff was right. She needed a place to stretch out her mind and senses, and there was no better time for clarity. As she moved into the clearing she used most often, deep in the forest around her property, she reassured herself once more that she was close enough to feel if they needed her, but far enough away that she could get the space to figure things out.

Every witch was affected by the full moon. Before Ruby was traveling so much with Derek, sometimes she and Ramona met on Raina’s property to do the monthly rituals, but often Raina did them by herself. There was a practical purpose. The primary order of business was channeling the Goddess’s light to reinforce the house protections. But the opening of the ritual was always about celebration, uncloaking beneath the light of the moon, feeling the Goddess’s supremacy fill the blood, that ancient connection that witches, particularly female ones, had shared with Her since the beginning of time.

Medieval superstition said Satan came to dance with the witches, fornicate with them all. A smile touched her lips. More likely, someone witnessed a male witch wearing a horned headdress, channeling the Lord, the Lady’s Consort, and coupling with the head priestess to draw down energy. The Great Rite. Of course, witches celebrated the sensual, so it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that they all joined in on that pleasure after the main magical work was done. In simpler times, a lot of birthdays likely could be traced back to such uninhibited celebrations.

She drew deep breaths, centering. She’d cast her circle, called Quarters, let that power fill her, thanked it for its presence. Now she pushed the cowl from her face, untied the silken cord and let the velvet robe drop from her naked body. On a nearby tree, she saw the gleam of moonlight on Cathair’s feathers, the flash of his eye as it became crimson, affected by the magic swirling around the protected circle.

Here she could let it free, the succubus and the witch, the flow of the power bathing her in heat, making her movements languid. It was here things became still, the world stopping at this one point so she could open herself to whatever wisdom was offered. The Lord and Lady knew her past, her present, her future.