Bewitched

Before I can react, he leans into me, cupping my face as his lips find mine once more.

We fall back onto my bed, wrapped up in each other. I’m ru

I gasp at the feel of it, my body electrified by its touch. It creeps up my arms, drawing out my gooseflesh.

I look for the magic, and this time, I do see the indigo plumes of it moving over my flesh—plumes Kane can’t see and probably can’t much sense either.

It hits me then—beyond the booze and the haze of desire—that the sorcerer who has been in my head this evening, has also been using his magic to draw out my desire.

One of those strands of magic now curls in on itself against my upper arm while Kane kisses my neck. It looks so i

If Memnon’s power is here, then…then he must be close by.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

I push against Kane’s chest, forcing the shifter to sit up as Memnon’s magic grows around us.

“What is it?” Kane says, his gaze hooded with desire.

“You need to go,” I say, giving him another push to get him moving.

The shifter stays stubbornly where he is. “Did I do something wrong?”

The indigo magic now floods the room, and my intuition—intuition I steadfastly ignored all evening—is screaming forewarnings at me.

“I have more issues than just my memory,” I tell him, scrambling to get up and forcing my arms back into my dress sleeves. The power around me has changed, no longer sensual but agitated, violent.

“You need to go,” I insist. “Now.”

At the direct order, I see Kane’s eyes flash, and I feel his own dominance rise at the challenge. “I’m not—”

BOOM!

The entire house rocks, and my window shatters. Something slams into Kane, and a split-second later, his body hits the wall, the plaster buckling under the force.

I hear a wolfish yelp at the impact, and as Kane crumples to the floor, a massive man looms over the shifter. I don’t need to see the sleeve of tattoos ru

“Memnon!” I cry, my stomach bottoming out as the sorcerer drags Kane back to his feet. “Stop!”

Memnon somehow manages to make Kane look small and boyish as he lifts the lycan by the throat.

To my horror, Kane’s eyes have shifted, and his teeth have sharpened.

“You dare to touch what is mine, wolf?” Memnon roars, his eyes begi

His magic is mounting, and I feel the vicious intent of it as it swirls around us.

“Memnon, stop!” I shout as I swing myself off the bed.

Beneath the sorcerer’s hand, a partially shifted Kane now returns to his human form. Only…he’s not the one doing the shifting; Memnon seems to be, his power so dense, I taste it on my tongue. Kane growls and yelps the entire time as though every second of it is agonizing. Once he’s fully human, he’s drenched in sweat and breathing heavily.

“I will castrate you and feed you your own godsdamned dick for what you have done!” the sorcerer bellows.

There aren’t words for the terror coursing through my veins. But beneath it brews my anger.

I lift my hand, my rage cha

“Release him!” The words come out in another language, and with it, my power sweeps over the room, the sherbet-orange hue of my magic overtaking the dark blue plumes of his own.

I feel it the moment my spell catches hold.

Memnon must as well because for the first time since he broke in, he turns to me.

“Release him?” he says. He eyes the lycanthrope. “Fine.”

Rather than simply let Kane go, Memnon hurls the shifter out my broken window.

I cry out, horrified as I hear Kane’s body snap branches and rustle leaves as it falls.

My power flows out of me then, racing after Kane. There’s no spell or any intricate design to go along with it, just intent—save Kane.

Unfortunately, my power is too slow.

I rush over to the window in time to hear the dull thump of Kane hitting the ground, no magic there to soften the impact.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

My magic recoils into me an instant later, and I feel that insidious tug inside my head, the one that indicates I lost another memory from using my power.

It doesn’t matter. Not when Kane may be out there dying.

I swing my leg out the gaping hole that was my window, but Memnon scoops me up from behind.

“First you trap me in a tomb and fuck me over for two mille

Has this man forgotten our entire last conversation?

“I—am not—Roxilana!” I kick at him.

Memnon ignores the strikes and, clutching me close, he steps onto the broken windowsill, then leaps off.

For a moment, I’m weightless. Then we land, and my entire body jolts from the impact, my teeth clicking together.

I catch sight of Kane’s slumped form, and I let out a horrified scream.

There’s a pool of blood around him, and he’s lying there, unmoving.

I struggle in the sorcerer’s grip all over again, but Memnon holds me fast. And then, he begins to carry me away, just like those captive fae brides Sybil warned me about.

Oh, hell no.

“Let go of me!” The command comes out in Sarmatian, though I barely notice. I’m spitting mad and consumed with worry for Kane.

Memnon ignores my shrieks and my struggles, continuing to stride onward, into the darkened woods.

In the distance I sense my familiar, but when I slip into his mind, all I see is forest.

Come now! I call to him, though I don’t know if Nero heard or felt compelled by the command.

Moving back into my own mind is confusing because the scenery is nearly the same—more darkened trees.

Once I get my bearings, I strike out with my power. The sorcerer laughs. Laughs.

The fucking gall.

“Don’t insult me, Empress. You know you’ll have to do much more than that if you wish to harm me.”

“You psycho! Let me go!” I twist in his arms, my magic flaring out of me with my panic and anger. It doesn’t so much as loosen his hold.

We’ve long since lost sight of the coven house when Memnon finally stops, reluctantly setting me down.

I’m breathing hard, my heart pounding a mile a minute when I turn and catch sight of him. The moonlight falls upon his features, turning them sinister. They tug at my mind, and for one brief second, I’m somewhere else—

Memnon grabs the long length of his hair and withdraws a knife.

Before I can react, he brings his blade to his coarse dark locks, and with one brutal stroke, he cuts most of it off.

Then the image is gone. The same man stands before me, but his eyes are harder, the set of his mouth harsher. Despite how angry he looks, every inch of my skin buzzes with this electrifying awareness.

Empress…you are mine…

I rub my temple, wanting him out of my head. I also want to scream because I thought we’d dealt with this whole mistaken-identity issue.

“I need to go back to Kane!” I can’t help the panic that slides into my voice. If he’s still alive, he may not be for long. Not unless I help heal him.

“Get back to him?” I see murder in his eyes when he glances past me toward the residence hall. “Sure, I will go back. That way, if that beast isn’t already dead, I can make good on my earlier threats to castrate him.”

Maiden, Mother, and Crone, the man truly is a psycho.

Panic takes over my thoughts, and now I’m the one gripping Memnon, determined to keep him here and away from Kane, even as my heart pounds wildly because the shifter needs help.

“And now you think to protect him from me? Your mate?” Memnon’s eyes are glowing again. I hadn’t realized they stopped until now. That only snags my attention for a second because—

“Mate?” I echo.

Things inside me go very quiet and very still.

“We have spoken our vows before your gods and mine,” Memnon continues. “You and I were molded from the same bit of earth. The Fates spun our threads together. And we entered our own covenant. Your mind may be addled—”

Addled?

“—yet there are some truths even it ca

“I am not that woman!” I shriek at him. “You know this—you acknowledged it yourself.

“Now,” I continue, jerking against him, “let—me—go!”

“Let you go?” Memnon’s eyes burn brighter, his expression hardening as his hair snaps about with his churning power. “Even if I wanted to—even if I didn’t have two thousand years of revenge to exact on you—your life is bound to mine, est amage. Not even death will part us. I will never let you go.”

Just when I think things can’t get any worse, Memnon reels me into him and kisses me.

The moment his lips meet mine, my magic comes alive.

It races along my skin and between my bones. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s consuming me.

Memnon’s magic joins in, threading through mine. I feel his power on me and in me, and I throb with the ecstasy of it.

It’s not even a choice to kiss him back—he’s a wildfire, and I’m getting swept up in it.

I kiss him like I’m starving for contact, like everything that was wrong has now been made right. The taste of him and the thrill of his power moving through me scorch my skin and steal my breath.

This is what I was searching for in the touch and taste of another. This is passion.

Memnon makes a possessive noise, slipping his hands into my hair, his staggering body enveloping me. His lips are bruising against mine; he kisses me with the ferocity of a starving man.

He tilts my jaw up to get a better angle.

It’s been too long since you’ve been in my arms, my queen.

I’m not sure Memnon intended for me to hear this—it sounds like a passing thought more than anything else—but the words whisper through my head all the same, and they break the spell.

What in the goddess’s good grace are you doing, Selene?

I move my hands to his lower abs and blast my power out, magically shoving him away.

“I thought we had established that I am not your anything.” Not his wife, not his queen, not his empress.

An angry smile graces his face. “Yes, you almost convinced me of that, didn’t you? But I have since had time to muse on it.” His tone changes, turning accusing. “I don’t know what witchcraft has destroyed your memory and produced those photos—”

“There was no witchcraft involved!” I say heatedly. We’re back to square one. I want to scream.