Page 36 of Blood Sacrifice

I tried to stay still, but I swear my body felt like it had been possessed by the spirit of a horny youth whose vagina was on an orgasmic mission. The fact that Salvator’s muscular body was pressed against mine, his hands grasping my hips, didn’t help my wayward hormones.

“I detected that unique floral scent again,” Salvator said. “I’m trying to determine where it’s coming from.”

If a wolf was tracking us, he would be able to find us by the scent of my arousal if I didn’t manage to escape into fresh air and cool down from the combustible heat that was coursing through my veins. The last time I felt this hot, a volcano had been grumbling in the background.

My head fell forward onto his chest, the molten need inside me crumbling all my reservations. I could resist this man if I wason another continent, but standing this close, my resistance was non-existent.

“He’s on the other side of the road and looking around him,” Salvator continued, his hands on my hips tightening.

A tingling pulsed between my legs, and I clamped my thighs together unconsciously.

“You might need to work a little hocus pocus,” Salvator said, his head lowering slightly, his lips touching the side of my throat. “Before he manages to locate us and I have to kill him in the middle of this crowd.”

My fingers grabbed the waistband of his jeans to pull him impossibly closer to me, the words of a spell forming in my mind before I muttered them. It would bind our energy into one so that all anyone who sought us would see was one person, who had a different appearance to either of us. This was how witches moved around in plain sight, not changing our outward appearance, but the perception of others.

Salvator’s hips ground into mine, and I suppressed a moan. We stood with our bodies pressed together and his lips brushed my skin again, leaving goosebumps in his wake. I felt the scrape of his canine and my stomach tightened. Everything else faded into insignificance except the way our auras fit together in perfect alignment. A feral need churned deep in my stomach, a craving that demanded the sacrifice of flesh and blood.

“I think he’s gone now,” Salvator said, slowly stepping back and leaving me trembling inside.

“We need to find out who he’s working for,” I replied, running a shaky hand through my hair and desperately trying to calm my emotions. “It might give us greater insight into what is going on right now.”

To cover my confusion, I turned and wandered into the market, pretending to look at the small stalls while in reality seeing nothing.

I could lie to myself and say my life had changed from the woman I used to be, and I could argue that magical beings relied on me and the network I had created to keep them safe. None of those facts mattered when the heat from Salvator’s body permeated into mine. All the arguments I could muster withered and died when I was with him, because nothing else mattered except being with him.

I had tried to convince myself that the mating ritual had never been completed because it would have tied my magic to his and Balor would have killed us both. Salvator had never bitten me, but we had shared our bodies and souls with each other, and forged a deep connection that had crossed the oceans of time and distance. He was the reason I had avoided relationships and attachments.

Salvator caught up with me easily with his long stride, his hand landing at the base of my spine in a casual gesture that sent vibrations through to the essence of my soul. I deliberately tried to lessen the tension in my body so he wouldn’t know the effect he had on me.

I’d spent years listening to the humans and magical beings around me speak of the intricacies of love. They risked everything for the chance of feeling that elation and soul connection. I had lived over four hundred years. Did I really find the love of my many lifetimes in the same small village I had been born, and played with him as a child? Dare I risk everything I had built, knowing that Salvator alone had the power to crush me?

Chapter Twelve

Salvator

It had taken several days for the magic in the amulet to finally break through whatever the fuck I had been whammied with. For the first time in forever, it felt like the world was back in focus. I hadn’t realised how disconnected I’d felt until I was me again.

We were currently staying in a property I owned close to Lake Titicaca. Legend reported this to be the birthplace of the Incas, and I wasn’t quite old enough to know the answer to that, but they did love high altitude places to build their temples.

There were new phones in storage here which allowed Luna and I to access emails and the internet. She had reached out to her friend Maia who was currently putting together a strategic unit to determine what was happening. Considering that I had been compromised, I didn’t know who to trust in my organisation right now. What troubled me even more was I didn’t know which of my properties had been identified when I had been bewitched.

I remembered Luna when she was a priestess dressed in robes and carrying out duties for the temple. She tended to be shy and quiet around others, but filled with passion and charisma when we were together. The Luna of today gravitated to the kitchen, incorporating magic into every element of her life, including cooking.

I sat in a chair beside the window, watching her discreetly. A spoon stirred a pot all by itself as she chopped vegetables close to the sink. She snapped her fingers and the spoon rose out of the pot and settled on the counter beside the cooker. She moved to the cupboard to collect spices, and the knife continued to chop. Magic was no longer a part of her, but an extension of her that reached out into the everyday world.

“You’re staring,” she accused without turning to look at me.

“I was just wondering if the broom was going to start brushing the floor,” I teased.

She moved so I was in her eyeline and winked. A broom adjacent to the kitchen door began to sweep the floor in time with the knife chopping.

“Show-off,” I grumbled.

“There’s little point in being able to perform magic and then taking the trash out yourself,” she replied.

This was a version of Luna that I never knew existed. A carefree homemaker who sang in the shower and managed to find me every night in her sleep no matter where she started in the bed. I had convinced her to sleep in my bed so that we were together in case we were attacked. She had created witch balls from bits and pieces she had found in nature on our journey. They hung around the outside of my house as a magical security system.

Normally magic felt like sandpaper scratching over my skin, and I tried to avoid direct contact with the witches in our organisation, but Luna’s magic was like a gentle caress that eased my emotions.

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