Page 33 of Tricky Magic
“You think I am a wolven?” He doubled over with laughter and almost ended up on the forest floor again.
Her skin prickled at his husky laugh, but she quickly stood, rallying her magic to try and stop another attack.
“What was I supposed to think? I know nothing about you,” she said. His laugh made her angry—well, mostly angry. The richness of the laugh itself was doing something completely different to her.
Ros straightened and the laughter was gone, replaced with a heated look. “Can a wolven do this?”
Shadows begin to gather around her and him without even a wave of his hand. He hadn’t blinded her earlier; this was shadow magic. Ellea lifted her chin and smiled at him.
“You want to play, big man? Let’s play.” Her powers begged for more. They caressed her skin and spoke sweetness in her ears. Ellea would let them have a little more freedom for this. An outright attack on her? Yes, they would get to play tonight.
She opened her arms and welcomed the shadows, letting them dance around her body like a lover would. He threw more at her, but he would have to try harder than that to drown her in them. He did, summoning more of them around her…but he missed the illusion.
Ellea was behind him and Ros was fully focused on the other Ellea, the ghost and mirrors version who was now smiling sweetly as the shadows slithered across her face. It was amazing how easy it seemed to cast this illusion. Her powers had never come this naturally. Ellea gasped as he turned on her. She had waited too long to attack.
Ros swiped out a booted foot that left Ellea on the ground below him. She kicked back, bringing him on the ground right next to her, then she shifted and threw her left arm down, striking him in the face. With her right, she punched him in the ribs, allowing her magic to zap him in the process. He took each blow without so much as a curse.
Ros moved quickly for such a large man. He had her pinned with one arm above her head and the other at her side. Ellea snuck her knees up and used her pinned arms as leverage to press him off of her with her legs.
This was nothing like sparring with her uncle, this was rough and raw. She was thankful for her training as she maneuvered to have Ros under her. Straddling his chest, she punched him square in the jaw. He let out a low laugh in response. Ellea was over it, and her powers screamed to end it. Wrapping her hands around his throat, she let her magic come to the surface. Burning his skin with electricity, she brought her face close to him and shouted, “Enough!”
Ros grabbed her wrists. But instead of freeing himself, he held her there and raised his chin, giving her more leverage to hold tighter. As she looked into his eyes, she saw them change, and realized he was no stranger to pain. He wasn’t scared or calculating, there was heat in his hazel eyes. As he took the deepest breath allowed, he tightened his grip on her
Is he into this?
Her powers sang at the contact, the inevitability of it all. Ros must have felt it too. His eyes smoldered. He parted his lips, and words escaped out, “Do it.”
Resting his chin on her hands, he bared his teeth at her. That single look had her body and powers fighting and burning. She wanted to throttle him or let him fuck her against a tree—maybe both at the same time. Things were so upside down, all she could do was release his throat and stare at him as she sat there, still straddling his chest. He was massive underneath her, and his heavy breaths moved her up and down.
A low sound came from him and his mouth quirked into a smirk.
“I have to say, I like this view,” he said with a groan. As the words registered in her head, his hands slipped up her thighs.
Ellea cocked her fist and punched him square in the jaw—right where a bruise was already forming from the other punch. He slowly turned his head back to her and gave her a full smile. His hands heated through her leggings as he gripped her tighter. In an instant, the hard forest floor slammed into her back, and Ros was above her.
“Oh, I think I like this view too,” he said, low and guttural. His face was slowly getting closer to hers.
Did she want this? No, how could she? The tingles she was feeling had nothing to do with him.
Think, Ellea!
Her body unfroze, and she kneed him hard in the balls. He roared and crumbled into a ball next to her. She scrambled away quickly and headed straight for her cabin.
14
Ros
Freckles danced in front of his eyes. They ran delicately along the nose and cheeks of a beautiful face framed with long hair. Ros could feel it tickling his skin, and he wanted to reach out his hand to grip it and pull her mouth to his. But first, he wanted to run his fingers along those freckles, that skin that heated under his touch. He finally reached out his hand, and it felt like nothing…nothing but air.
Waking with a groan, he rolled over to cover his face and pressed his erection into the mattress, trying to rid himself of it yet again. It had been three days since the encounter in the woods, and he had dreamt of her every night.Her.The witch. He still didn’t know her name.
Who knew letting a witch try and beat the shit out of you would be so motivating? He’d spent every waking hour trying to distract himself. The town had enough wood to last through the year with the amount of trees he’d chopped. His cabin now had new floors and new built-in shelves. The new shelves had led him to reorganizing his library of books and all the items that didn’t have a home. He’d also found his love for running again, the laps around the lakes no longer enough to tire him out.
Ros continued to lie there with his face smothered in his pillow, wondering what he could do today. Nothing came to mind. He would have to call Weylyn again. He’d had a blast killing the rogue vampire clan up north, taking his time and making sure they suffered for their crimes. The look of fear on a monster’s face as he ripped out their throat with his bare hands was so very satisfying.
No matter how much he did, whatever he killed, his dreams were filled with her. Ros could still feel the tendrils of muscle as he gripped her thick thighs. He could still see the way her eyes had raged at him, then heated in an instant. All the power in her soft hands as she wrapped them around his throat, her magic sparking just below the surface… His cock pressed harder into the mattress, and that was his cue for a very cold shower. He should kill her, end his suffering and stop something bad from happening.
He wasn’t going to kill her.
