time. She wanted, more than anything, to feel alive. Completely alive. And that was possible only when he was inside her.
“Maybe,” she said, rolling over onto her stomach and looking back at him over her shoulder, “you should start checking me now. If you’re going to be thorough, it could take a while.”
He gave her a slow, satisfied smile. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said, sliding the flat of his hands up her thighs to the curve of her behind. “I should be thorough.”
“Let me help,” she offered, going up on her knees as she grabbed hold of the headboard again. She wiggled her behind and parted her legs in invitation. “I don’t want you to miss anything, now do I?”
“I promise you,” he said softly, “no matter how long it takes, nothing will be overlooked. I am a very patient man.”
Torin came up behind her and ran his fingers through the dark red curls guarding her damp, hot flesh until her hips rocked and her breath came in short gasps. When neither of them could take the separation any longer, he mounted her and shoved himself into her depths.
The slap of flesh meeting flesh, the harsh, labored breathing and the whispered words of promises and pleas were the only sounds in the dimly lit room as once more, the witch and her Eternal made magic as old as time itself.
“The closest Sanctuary is only a day from here,” Torin assured her. “We’re near enough for you to try to make contact with the portal.”
“Right.” Naked, Shea sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the mirror Torin had ripped off the wall. She was about to attempt a portal opening spell and she knew that spellwork was more effective if done skyclad. Though it felt weird to be sitting naked in front of a mirror. They were in a roadside motel just outside Norman, Oklahoma. She glanced around at the oh, so familiar generic motel furniture and squelched a sigh.
Since going on the run, they had been in far too many of these motel rooms.
“If you have trouble with the spell you’ve written, we can go to Sanctuary in person tomorrow.”
She nodded, glanced up at him and gave him a brief smile. “We’ve been focusing for days, channeling our powers together to be strong enough to enter the portal. I can do this.”
“I have faith,” he said. Holding the mirror upright for her, Torin watched as she lit a single yellow candle.
The wick caught and a wavering flame danced in the stillness. “Yellow for confidence, divination, to stimulate the conscious mind,” she whispered.
“You remember,” he said just as softly.
“Yes. More every day. But not quickly enough.” Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, waved her hands over the candle flame three times and whispered the chant she had written only that morning. Widen my eyes that I may see, the secrets of eternity.
A spell to open up my powers
Is what I need in this hour.
My sisters wait upon my task
A little help is all I ask.
Torin grinned, but kept silent so he wouldn’t interrupt her concentration. But damned if he wasn’t enjoying watching his woman find her magical feet. She was proud and resilient and as stubborn as ever. But at the heart of her, she was pure female. And all his.
“I see the portal,” she said, a half smile on her face. She opened her eyes, stared into the mirror and spoke without looking at Torin. “It’s like a bubble. Shining with the light of a million suns. It’s wavering, like a mirage in the desert.”
“Can you reach in?” he asked quietly.
“I think so.” She drew one long, deep breath and leaned forward, over the dancing candle flame toward the mirror.
Torin said nothing as she reached into the glass, her hand and arm disappearing from sight. Her features were twisted into a mask of concentration. “It’s right there. I can touch it. Feel it. I just have to… grab it!”
As she said the last two words, she jerked back, pulling out of the mirror. The candle flame snuffed out as if an unseen breath had blown on it.
“I did it,” she whispered, glancing up at him with a wide smile.
He looked at the worn leather book she held in both hands and felt an answering smile on his own face. “You found the book you wanted?”
“I found the book I cast the spell for,” she said, caressing the cover. “Hopefully, it will give me what I have to know about casting more spells and gathering up the magic we’re going to need.”
A week later, Torin and Shea were holed up in yet another motel somewhere in Ohio. The last town she remembered going through was Brecksville, a suburb of Cleveland. Since she was geographically challenged in the best of times, she had no idea where that might be on a map. All she really cared about was that they were as lost to the world as they could be.
Although she knew all too well that nowhere was safe.
Not for Shea.
She and Torin had discovered that hard truth during their cross-country ride. Didn’t matter if he’d removed all of the electronic trackers from her body. Their enemies would eventually find them anyway. Shea’s face was on every news channel. Her eyes stared out at them from the covers of magazines and the grainy front pages of newspapers.
She’d hoped that as more time passed, her story would be forgotten-or at least be moved to the back of the line, behind more breaking news. But rather than the story dying down, it was ratcheting up as the whole country took an interest in the witch who had escaped Terminal Island.
So the two of them kept moving, driving when Torin’s incredible stores of energies had been sapped. Cars were easy enough to come by. Magic allowed them to take what they needed, leaving behind no memory of their having been there. Being a car thief wasn’t high on Shea’s list of occupations, but then she preferred being a thief to being dead. Over the following days and nights, Shea saw more of the country than she ever had before and knew that if she hadn’t currently been listed as Public Enemy Number One, she might have even enjoyed the trip.
As it was, all she felt was trapped. The motel was small and clean, but had been decorated sometime in the seventies. There were pink and orange shag throw rugs on the floor and wildly flowered bedspreads. The walls were painted a dark pink and boasted a wallpaper border of orange and pink daisies at the ceiling.
Under other circumstances she might even have been amused at the place-it was like stepping back in time. But for Shea, this room was yet one more box in a series of boxes where she’d been holed away, denied any freedom of movement. Wherever they were, that closed-in feeling rose up like solid white gold walls around her and Shea wondered if she’d ever really be free again.
Every night on television, the news channels displayed their Witch Alert Boards. Tiny colored pushpins dotted maps of the country and showed exactly where witches were being caught and imprisoned. There were talk show hosts who made jokes about flying witches and suggested to their audience that they study the night sky and lock up their broomsticks. There were children playing MP and witch on the streets.
And worse-for them anyway-there was a reward of fifty thousand dollars being offered for Shea’s return.
That she didn’t understand at all. She was a witch, just like so many others being herded into camps and prisons all over the world. Why was she being singled out?
“Stay inside,” Torin said as he walked to the motel room door. “I’ll get food and be back in a half hour. Stay away from the windows and don’t open the door to anyone.”
Irritated, Shea snapped, “I get it, okay? We’ve been doing this for days, Torin. I know the rules.”
His jaw clenched, but he only nodded as he left.
The moment he was gone, she regretted tearing into him. After all, he was all she had. The Eternal had been by her side through all of this, had kept her safe, and she felt the connection between them growing every day. She didn’t need to see the spreading tattoo on her skin, already circling around to her back and toward her spine, to know that the bonding between them was almost complete.
She felt it with every breath she drew.
