I’d spent years keeping Lilita tucked away, meditating and using protection spells. Layer upon layer, over time those guards kept her shackled in place. And now I did my best to ignore the tension filing my gut. What would trigger Lilita to return? Was my kiss with Ash really the reason for her leaving? But why and how?

  “Bee, I found something,” he yelled from somewhere upstairs, the excitement clear in his voice.

  Letting out a long breath to ease some of my pent-up tension, I climbed to my feet and brushed the crumbs off my skirt.

  A loud thud sounded, and I snapped around to Ash, who’d leaped down and was already rushing toward me carrying an oversized manual under his arm.

  “What is it?” An uneasy prickly uneasiness rolled over me. The eeriness ate at my insides like parasites, and when a menacing chuckle ricocheted in my mind, I felt the cold drain from my face. The change was coming.

  “Lilita!” I scrambled backward until I hit the shelves. Iciness swept through me so fast, my head swam.

  Ash dropped the book in his grip to the ground. “Are you all right?”

  “Run. Get out of here.” I turned away and already my flesh crawled, and my middle constricted. My vision blurred at the edges.

  Ash was there, standing over me in an instant. He wrenched me toward him, his mouth on mine.

  A blast of terror rocked as Lilita pushed through me.

  Ash. His mouth. Soft. Warm. Delicious. His fingers dug into my flesh, drawing me closer.

  Focus! I yelled to myself. With every inch of strength, I concentrated on our point of contact. His tongue on mine, his heat leaping over. Melting the earlier coldness.

  The air crackled with energy. But nothing mattered except Ash and me.

  He growled, his kiss forceful, and lifted me into his arms. When we broke apart, I stared into the eyes of the beast. He shimmied as his body readied for its own change.

  Torn between my transformation and his, for those few moments, we remained frozen in time. Urgency drummed in my veins, yet I couldn’t budge. Wouldn’t. Not when his touch eased the piercing ache of someone slicing me from the inside out.

  The pain grew, and I cried out as if the air strangled me.

  Ash kissed me again, fast and starved.

  The agony softened.

  Lilita’s screams gathered in my head, driving me toward Ash. I fisted his hair, needing more.

  “The book,” he half-growled, and his body shuddered as he pointed behind to where it lay on the floor. “Curse is connecting us.” A roar rolled off his throat, and he lurched backward, releasing me. But I reached out and snatched his wrist. My gaze shifted to the textbook. His words twirled in my brain with our earlier kiss and how I had no longer sensed Lilita. I didn’t understand it, and the growing sludge in my brain slowed my thoughts.

  Lilita was here.

  I drew on my last inch of strength and dragged Ash closer.

  He staggered, but I pressed my lips to his, powerful and desperate. And at that precise contact, a thread of peacefulness trickled through me.

  Undecipherable words filled me; Lilita’s, no doubt. I ripped open Ash’s shirt, craving his touch on me. He walked us to the table and set me on the edge, his hands already pulling at the cords lacing the front of my dress. Our mouths never unlocked, and I adored how his tongue swept into my mouth, how he chewed on my lower lip, how unrelenting his attention became.

  He slid the fabric of my dress off my shoulders, and the cool air raised goosebumps over my skin. We broke away, yet he still held his form as a human. His hands trembled. But within me, Lilita’s rage burst forward.

  I winced as the pain started once again. “Are we meant to kiss for eternity?”

  Ash grimaced, holding his midsection, clearly in pain. “The book said to consummate the connection.” Doubling over, he slumped to his knees.

  I jumped to his side and pushed myself into his embrace, adoring the way he felt against me, how his hands always held me as if we’d been doing this for months. “Then let’s do this.” Before he could respond, we merged. His solid muscles were tense against me. Lilita’s presence faded once again, and if Ash was right, I’d gladly take one for the team and give myself to him if it meant controlling our dark sides.

  He drove the dress down my body, and I stood, climbing out of it, and his breath washed across my stomach. I looked down at myself. Naked. Of course. Lilita didn’t believe in wearing undergarments.

  But the moment Ash’s hands sailed to my waist, a fire consumed me.

  Ash drew his top up and over his head, then tossed it aside. With his hands on my hips, he guided me to my knees to join him, and his mouth found mine. His skin was an inferno. I straddled his bent leg and drowned under his passion.

  In Ash’s world, I floated on clouds.

  His hands found my breasts and he kneaded them, pinching my nipples. I moaned, desperate for more. If this was him with just a few touches, had I been wearing underwear, they would have melted off by now.

  “You’re incredible.” His stubble tickled me as he raised a breast to his mouth. He flicked me, and I grasped his shoulders, arching. In slow motion, he nibbled on my skin and made his way over to the next one. His eyes closed, and I rubbed myself against his leg for extra tingling. His hands grabbed my ass, prying the cheeks apart. He dipped lower, his fingers brushing the fire scorching between my legs.

  “Oh, yes, Ash. Please, right there.”

  He lifted himself. I shivered against him.

  I mewled louder as he fingered me so hard, I swore I’d self-combust. Reaching down between us, I unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down his thighs. I curled my hand over his steel-hard rod, so thick, I could barely get my hand around him. I bent forward to reach his hardness and slid him into my mouth. Hot, musky, and salty.

  He rewarded me with two fingers in my pussy, and I embraced the exhilaration that came with him forcing me open, pumping faster. “You’re so tight.”

  Back and forth, I sucked him, and he aroused me in a way I hadn’t known was possible. We hadn’t even had sex yet.

  With that, I lost all manner of control. My body thundered with the sweetest orgasm, my knees buckling underneath me. He pulled out of my mouth, and I screamed, unable to hold on to the building pressure any longer.

  Ash’s large hands grabbed my ass and forced me to face away from him. My butt perched high, and I shivered with desire.

  Next thing, he lapped my quivering pussy as the last remnants of my excitement rocked me. His licks had me so wet, and already my libido kicked up a notch, ready to go again. Faster.

  “Fuck me!” Out of breath, I glanced over my shoulder as he rubbed the tip of his cock with a thumb.

  “Let me know if I hurt you, little one.”

  “You better make it hurt.”

  He laughed, the sound liberating and so sexy. Goddess, why couldn’t I score a boyfriend like Ash to keep forever?

  The moment he pushed into me, I arched. Large and strong, he stretched me, and I fisted the edge of the rug beneath me. His grip tightened on my hips and squeezed in deeper.

  I writhed, lifting my pelvis for easier access.

  And with a slap to my ass with his large palm, he pulled out and thrust back inside. I screamed with desire. Needing. Hunger. Drowning in elation.

  Our groans echoed throughout the library. There was no better place to have sex with a delicious hunk than in the most magnificent library I’d seen. We fell in rhythm, our bodies coming together, connecting. Sweat dripped down my spine as he rode me, and our scent of sex filled my nostrils.

  Sweet mother. My throat dried, and everything about our union felt perfect. My world faded into an oblivion, along with my problems. If this was the euphoria from him taking me, hell, sign me up for a daily serving.

  He reached across to my stomach and dipped his hand to my clit, then rubbed my sensitive nub. And as if he’d switched something on inside me, a surge shot through me, convulsing, shaking me as another orgasm owned me.

  “That’s it. Squeeze me!” Ash released a feral grunt, slamming into me one last time and pulsing with his own satisfaction.

  And just as we quieted, a sense of normality flooded me without an indication of Lilita remaining. I turned to Ash, who smirked, breathing hard. No sign of his bear side. He reached out for me when a roar bellowed from deeper in the house.

  Ash withdrew and leaped to his feet. “My brothers have changed.”

  And with those simple words, I was hurled back into the arena of madness that had become my life since arriving in White Peak.

  Chapter 16

  Ash shoved the couch across the room, the legs scraping on the marble floor. He pushed it up against the only set of doors leading into the library, locking us inside. All I could do was stand there, hugging myself as another roar burst from somewhere in the castle. The other shifters had turned and probably ran amuck. How long before they tracked us down and made a feast of us? My brain had shut down, and I broke out in a cold sweat.

  Despite just having the most amazing sex in the world, a terror-ridden straitjacket tightened around me. I fumbled with my gown, dragging it over my head and down my body. My hands shook as I tried to tie the laced cord across my bust.

  Ash was at my side in seconds, his face pale and eyes enlarged. “We need to move upstairs.” He collected the cords from me and tied up the front of my dress. And all I could do was fight the terror building in my mind from being hunted down by three famished bear shifters.

  “We should have locked everyone up instead of fooling around.” Regret burned a hole through my chest as I chewed my cheek.

  “Then what?” Ash met my gaze and climbed into his pants. “Lilita would have emerged and controlled us, making us do unspeakable things. What happened between us was a miracle.” He lifted my knuckles to his mouth, then drew me toward the steps. “And not just because you were the sweetest little thing I could ever have, but now we know how to control the transformations.”

  Of course he had a point, but that didn’t ease the trepidation chewing on my confidence. Hand in hand, we raced upstairs and my brain yanked me in a dozen different directions as I tried to make sense of what to do next. What I needed was two seconds of peace to sort through my mind. Instead, I climbed the circular stairs, my thighs aching, and the apex between my legs still wet. Goddess, what I wouldn’t have done for a quick toilet break right then. I supposed not having to worry about that only happened in stories, while in reality, things were so much messier.

  On the fifth level, I struggled for air, and Ash dragged me into a secret compartment between two bookshelves and bolted us inside the pitch-dark space.

  “Where are we?” A funky stink assaulted my senses, and I covered my nose.

  Ash shuffled about and pulled open window slats. Brilliant light flooded the small room. A double bed on one side and an empty bookshelf on the other, with a narrow passage down the middle leading to the window. Snow cascaded outside, and in the distance an ocean of trees and mountains spread over the terrain. It was all so gorgeous, and yet we remained trapped amidst its beauty. Before long, the sun would sink behind the horizon, bringing with it the cold temperatures.

  “This was Vivienne’s hideout,” Ash said. His voice lowered, and I caught the hitch in his breath. “Vivienne used to bunker here with her favorite books and read for hours about knights saving a heroine from dragons or going on pirate adventures.” He laughed, but he sounded almost sorrowful.

  "She must have had a wonderful imagination."

  "Wild would be the better word." He smiled.

  “So she loved romances!” I slapped Ash on the hand. “That’s what I write.”

  “Come on. Raze told us what you wrote, and that’s full-on erotica.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Whatever. There’s a plot that’s more than just falling in love and sex.” I plonked down on a bed covered in throw rugs and cushions. The area had been gutted of any personal artifacts—no photos or knickknacks. “What now? We wait to get mauled to death?”

  “The library door is locked, as is this one. Our scents are all over the downstairs floor, so if they do break inside, that will distract them long enough before they discover us and morning arrives. And we’re in a small space, meaning I could take on one at a time if they find us.” He winked my way. “Then once I hold them, you do your thing. I don’t intend to hurt my brothers.”

  I pulled my knees up to my chest. “What’s my thing? Put a spell on them?”

  “Kiss them so they snap out of their transformation.”

  “Are you crazy? You want me to kiss a bear shifter in kill-mode?” I stared at the door, my hair standing on end. We were easy targets.

  He paced to the window, only wearing his pants—I wondered if he was cold since there was no fireplace in this room. I studied the way his muscles shifted beneath his skin, remembering how amazing he’d made me feel. How much I wanted to crawl into his arms and hide from the world.

  “What did you read in that book you found before?” I asked to distract my thoughts and ignore the fear weighing on my ribs.

  Ash stood there with his hands by his sides, towering over me like a protector. How I’d love to be home, safe and secure. What was Dad doing right now? Hopefully keeping warm and not forgetting to water the garden.

  “It was a book about potions and there was a section that talked about how when some spells affect multiple people, it’s because the spell bound them together. Think about it—Lilita’s dark magic suppressed the curse temporarily. And you did the same with me, but in your own way.”

  That made sense, and while I didn’t understand the full dynamics of how this worked, what if the solution to break the hex was somewhere inside me? “That explains why the enchantment affects us at the same time. But did you notice that the change came during the day, not at night?” I breathed in the cold air, hugging my knees. “The curse has morphed into something else. The rules have changed.” I felt every beat of my heart pounding, drowning the noise in my head.

  He nodded. “With us having sex, maybe our energies have merged and are counteracting the curse, so that might be the reason for the changes in the hex and also why we stopped our transformations.”

  “Probably. I’ve always had a stronger handle over my magic after I wrote my erotic scenes—and sometimes it would be even easier to control after I’d pleasure myself.” I glanced outside and wished I had wings to fly away.

  “Please elaborate in precise details,” Ash teased, and I loved that he held on to his sense of humor, even in the face of so much danger.

  I grabbed a pillow and threw it at him before sitting back down, as there wasn’t much space to move about in with Ash standing there. He ducked, and the cushion hit the bookshelf behind him.

  “Just so I get this right,” he continued. “The release of your sexual pleasure helps you control Lilita too, right?”

  “I guess so.” I’d only discovered the surge in energy when I’d started writing about a year ago.

  Ash was fiddling with the buttons on his pants.

  “What are you doing?” I pushed myself against the wall, lifting another pillow and embracing it against my chest, my breath locked in my chest.

  He glanced up at me, mischief in his eyes. “Well, if I bring you to orgasm a few more times, you might cleanse the entire house of evil.”

  I had no words because I wasn’t some performing monkey. “Are you shitting me?”

  He chuckled and came over, ruffling my hair. “Had you going there.”

  “Hell, right now I wouldn’t be surprised by anything.” So much had happened these past few days that I could finally see that my guard and money problems back in Terra were nothing in comparison to what I’d encountered in White Peak.

  Ash joined me on the bed, both of us sitting there, our backs against the wall, our legs touching. In another time and place, this would have been the perfect moment. Yet no matter what we talked about, at the back of my mind, I kept remembering crazed shifters were out there on the loose.

  So our options had come down to one: sit and wait for their transformations to fade.

  “Hope you’re brothers don’t run outside and kill innocents?”

  “Doubt it. Every time Talin got caught outside during a transformation, he bolted back home as if he were possessed. I’m praying they were smart enough to have shut themselves in the cage as they felt the changes coming on.” He fell quiet for a while, staring out the window into the wilderness. “When I changed from the curse, I had this overwhelming urge to remain inside. I can’t explain it, but it didn’t even cross my mind to go outdoors.”

  “Might be part of the curse,” I suggested, well aware that complicated incantations came with rules and restrictions on the person being hexed. “Maybe Rek didn’t want to involve citizens?”

  Ash sighed and stared at the barren bookshelf. “I feel terrible that we dragged you into our problems, Bee. Honestly, we believed you’d come in, do a spell, and be done.”

  “I thought the same. But my dad says things always happen for a reason. And I want to believe good will come out of all of this.”

  Silence fell between us. With no sounds outside, either, I prayed the brothers were in their cage, not charging toward us. That tightening sensation of my chest never left me, robbing me of my senses and rational thinking.

  “Where do you see yourself in ten years? Married with three to four kids?” Ash asked, nudging me to stop me from biting my nails.

  “Three to four kids? That’s crazy talk. Before I settle down, I plan to visit every realm in Haven. I’ve seen three so far. Darkwoods, Terra, and now White Peak. I want to try out all the different cuisines, visit Tritonia and ride a pirate ship—but keep clear of the voodoo witches. They’re nasty pieces of work. Anyway, I also want to meet a mermaid there for real.”

  He scoffed. “You know mermaids are myths, right?”

  “What?” I twisted in his direction and shook my head. “You need to get out more. My friend Ariella saw them firsthand, and she doesn’t lie.”

 

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