Jessica Andersen - Magic Unchained

He snapped the spell word to light a foxfire, and it blazed instantly, bigger and brighter than his usual, amped by the power that thrummed through the coyote cave. The ceiling had returned to its original position so the animals hung high above the coyotes, and the water had drained away, leaving just a thin river that circled around the central altar. The entrance was still sealed, though, and the magic was thick in the air, heavy and expectant. And Cara lay against him, her breathing far too slow. Her dark hair was a stark contrast against the milk of her skin and the startling white stripe, making him think of Sleeping Beauty, poisoned apples, and evil queens. Only he was no prince, and it was going to take more than a kiss to wake her up.

Pulse thudding, hoping like hell this would work, he went for his knife, cut his palm, and let the blood fall to the sand as he whispered, “Pasaj och.”

There was a burning in his blood, a jolt in his soul, and the wild magic snapped and snarled within him. But there was no sense of movement, no mist, no vision. Instead of jacking in this time, he stayed stubbornly inside a body that suddenly seemed not to fit quite right. And instead of calling her back or sending him into the barrier after her, the spell called something else instead. Sparks kindled in his gut and his blood heated, and he was suddenly so very aware of her curves, and the way they fit somehow despite their differences.

Her breath feathered across his throat, bringing a low growl from the gray fog inside him—one that shimmered to life as thought-glyphs: Want. Take. It wasn’t Mac’s inner voice, though; it was his own. And although he’d told himself a thousand times why he couldn’t take what he wanted, he couldn’t remember any of the reasons right then; he could only wrap her tighter in his arms, pull her closer to his body, and ride the fierce surge of possessiveness that suddenly burned in his veins. His senses heightened and his skin grew sensitive as his cock hardened and the urge to mate took hold. He wanted to have her, hold her, bury himself inside her. He wanted to feel her clawing at his back, wanted to hear the sounds she made when she came. And then he wanted to come himself, lose himself inside her and steep his scent into her pores, marking her as his own.

Don’t. It’s sex magic. The words seemed strange, as if coming in an unfamiliar language from a part of himself that was so much smaller and less important than the flames that raced through him, a mix of power and desire, and the sharp ache that came with having denied himself for so long.

“No, damn it.” He wasn’t going there, didn’t dare even touch the fringes of the electricity that sparked between them. She was magic, power, glory, and goodness all wrapped up in a tiny yet perfect body, but he knew better than to even take a taste, not knowing whether he would be able to force himself to pull back and not take it too far. She was his weakness, after all.

Sacrifice isn’t supposed to be easy. The reminder might have come in the nahwal’s many voices, might’ve come from deep within Sven himself. But it blazed with new certainty, bringing the knowledge that this wasn’t just a test; it was a chance for him to be there for her as he’d failed to be so many times before.

Rearing back, he looked down at her for a moment, memorizing the sight of her curled against his chest as if she belonged there. Then, not letting himself hesitate any longer, he clasped her hands in his, aligning their cut palms and feeling the low buzz of the forming blood-link. Here goes nothing, he thought, but what he really meant was, Here goes everything, because in the next instant he dropped all his shields and opened himself to her, holding nothing back.

Power blazed inside him and flowed through the link into her. Then he flowed through the link, as well, and for a disorienting second, he wasn’t inside his own head anymore. He was in hers. He felt her strength, her determination, her insecurities, her loneliness, and the lifelong fear that she wouldn’t be good enough, that she would let down the people who were counting on her, so much longer a list now than ever before. And each of those things resonated inside him. Oh, holy shit, how they resonated. But although those core emotions were in place, that was all. Her essential self, her full consciousness, wasn’t there. All he could sense was the hollow echo of his own soul as it ate itself from within.

She was lost in the darkness. Because he’d left her behind.

Guilt slashed, but he didn’t ease back. Instead, he tightened his grip on the blood-link and focused on pouring his power—his magic—into her. Cara. I’m here. You’re here. You need to find your way back. He thought it like a prayer, sending it into her and hoping to hell it would find her and lead her home.

Silence was agony. Brutal, crushing defeat.

He sagged against her, held her closer, tried to wrap himself around her until he wasn’t sure where his flesh ended and hers began. And all the while, he was sending the magic. It rushed from him to her and back again, bringing only lonely echoes and the growing fear that he was too late, that it wasn’t enough, that he’d already—

Hello? It was so faint that for a second he thought he’d imagined it. But then he heard it again: Hello? Anyone?

Jesus gods. Relief slammed through him, weakening his defenses even more. “Here! Gods, Cara, yes, I’m here!” He said it aloud, heard it reverberate off the cave walls.

Sven?

Yeah. This way. Come toward my voice. He sensed movement in the fog, caught a shimmering outline, a thread of desperate joy as she flung herself at his magic.

For a second, his essence caught hers and they held on and clung as they had done before, in the vision. And then—thank the fucking gods, she was back, once more fully inhabiting her body and soul, and pushing him back into himself. Suddenly he could taste her on his lips, smell her on his skin, and feel her body warming and shifting against his as she turned in his embrace. And that was no dream or vision. It was real.

His eyes flew open as she flung her arms around his neck and clutched him so tight he almost couldn’t breathe. “You came back for me.” Her words were muffled against his throat, her face hot against his skin. “You did. You came back.”

“Of course.” Pain stabbed that he’d given her such reason to doubt it. He eased her choke hold and rolled them onto their sides, partly so he could pull away and get a look at her, but mostly so she wouldn’t feel the big-ass tent pole he had going in the front of his pants. Hold it together, he told himself. You can do this. Furiously, he shunted the churning, sexual magic to the foxfires, which glowed so brightly they seemed to drip with light. The move leveled him off enough that he could stop himself from grabbing her, though, and bought him enough breath to grate, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, but her eyes were locked on his, her pupils dilating. “No.” Her breathing synched with his, fast and shallow. “I don’t know.”

Her pulse throbbed at her throat, beating in time with his heart and the heavy thrum of blood lower down, where he was hard and ready. Needy. But that need didn’t matter if the desire went only one way. Except that unless he was misreading the vibe that had sprung up between them, the sizzles were going both ways all of a sudden. Magic flared through him, putting red-gold sparks in the air and heightening his senses to an almost painful intensity. And when he shifted to stroke the place where color rode high on her cheeks, his hand shook with the effort it took not to bury his fingers in her hair and dive in for a kiss. But if he took a taste he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop there. He would want a nibble, a bite, and then more. Everything.