I don’t know what I was more shocked about, the fact I’d just killed a man, or the fact I’d just been shot. I could feel the pain in my chest start to register in my mind, as I looked down at the quickly growing blood stain in disbelief.

  Nora cried out in shock, and I felt her actually catch me and lower me gently as possible as I fell back and passed out. The last absurd thought passing through my mind was wondering how we were going to explain it to the police.

  Chapter Nine

  The room was hot, that’s the first thing I sensed as I regained consciousness, and the second absurd thought was wondering if I’d gone to hell after all. But when I opened my eyes, it was to a dimly lit room with a boiler in it, and only then did I pick up the sounds of the flames and the idea that’s where the heat was radiating from. It was dusty, hot, and dry, but the cement walls and floor were a bit grimy in places.

  What I was laying on wasn’t exactly soft by any measure, but it was perfectly contoured to my body so kind of felt that way anyway, my weight perfectly distributed. It was with a sense of bemusement that I was laying on a bed of water. Just… without the mattress part that held the water in and in shape. Yet, my back felt dry, as if the surface of the water was holding me up and not getting me wet.

  I was shirtless, and Nora was laying against my side asleep with her head on my shoulder and her arm thrown over my stomach. Rosaria was standing against the wall and no doubt maintaining our mattress of water. I felt sore in my chest, but when I looked down it was clean and healed over.

  “What happened?”

  Rosaria said, “I stopped the bleeding by controlling your blood, and I got the bullet out in a similar way. The police were coming, so we had to get out of their fast. I kept you stable while the two of us carried you into the building, and down into the boiler room. Your bloody shirt fed the fire and Nora was able to heal you, but it took a lot out of her. She was also… emotional. She blames herself, thought the inquisition agent wouldn’t have woken up so fast and that we shouldn’t have been in danger.”

  “I feel okay, but tender. I don’t think I’ll be at a hundred percent for a few days.”

  Rosaria replied, “I also cleansed you, so there won’t be an infection. It’s been several hours, and I’ve retrieved our things from the room and used the television checkout. She didn’t think it would be a good idea for us to go back to it, they’re probably under orders to call the police if we show up. There was no time to clean up the body to preserve the secret, and the police are sure to have found it and are probably baffled by his injuries.”

  Yeah, I was starting to be glad he was dead, but it was still a shock to realize I was now a killer of men. I’d taken down my fair share of animals in the hunt over the years, and I’d kind of known this was coming. The human authorities couldn’t police the supernatural, so it was up to us to protect ourselves and stop the true monsters among us, but it was still a shock.

  I was a firm believer in the rules of self-defense, justified homicide, I hadn’t done anything wrong. But there was still a cost in taking the live of another, justified or not, and I felt the mark of it on my soul. It wasn’t something I’d ever take lightly, or take satisfaction in.

  I also wasn’t going to ask how Rosaria had managed all that, getting our stuff and checking out, she’d obviously gone back while choosing to be invisible to normal humans. Hell, for all I know she’d teleported, there was still a lot about Rosaria’s nature and powers as a spirit of nature that I didn’t know.

  I took out my phone, it was right around three, so the museum should be open for another six hours or so. Still, we’d have to leave London right after the mission now, there’d be no dinner out for Nora and I, and no night at the hotel either.

  I felt a surge of protectiveness, as I looked down at Nora, her classically beautiful face almost soft in the peacefulness of sleep. It was good to be alive. If the bullet had been even slightly farther down I suspect it would’ve hit my heart, and that would’ve been it for me. So that was two new things for me to absorb, the first time I’d come so close to death, and the first time I’d taken a human life.

  There was a price tag to my amazing new life.

  Nora made a cute sleepy noise that stirred my heart as she snuggled into me deeper, then her eyes snapped open and she looked up into mine. Her eyes started to tear, and I caressed her back gently.

  “I’m okay, thanks to you.”

  She stretched up and kissed me. The kiss was warm at first, a kiss to reassure her I was fine and alive, but it slowly morphed into a kiss of life-affirming desperate passion. She let out the cutest needy sound I ever heard, as she crawled up onto me and deepened the kiss. I sure as hell didn’t mind, and I got a little lost in the sensations of her lips on mine. Despite the soreness in my chest, I was as hard as steel already from that needy kiss and the soft sounds of whimpering joy that fell from her lips that I was okay.

  She sighed into mouth as she ground herself against me. She sat up straight, heat and lustful need in her eyes, as well as a warmth I’d never seen before, not in full flower. It was as if she was finally admitting in that moment how much I was coming to mean to her, to herself. The need in her to express in that moment was powerful, and she was entirely beguiling to me in that moment. So beautiful, almost painfully so, but it was our connection and deep affection through my empathy and what I felt myself that had me completely dazzled, beguiled, and lost in her gorgeous and seductive violet eyes.

  The large helping of life affirming lust and need only raised up that affection between us, and I’d never wanted to be connected intimately to a woman more than in that moment because of it.

  Her hands quickly had my pants undone, and apparently Rosaria wanted to help, because the water mattress itself stripped the pants off my legs wickedly fast. If I wasn’t so lost in Nora’s eyes, and the heat between us, I might’ve laughed.

  No longer contained, my cock stood up proudly as hard a steel. Nora stripped the blue dress over her head, revealing the sexy black lingerie panty and bra set she had. She didn’t even bother with the rest of it, or taking her panties off, as if that would take too long. She just mounted me, pulled the panties to the side, and then dropped down impaling herself on my pleasure with a cry of pleasure as she stretched out so tautly around me.

  So hot, like a furnace, and already soaked for me in the heat of that moment. The affection in her not only acknowledged, but embraced, even as it mixed with the desperate need for life affirming wild sex. She worked her way down, slowly burying me in the paradise of sensations that was her nubile body.

  “So good in me, Brendan. So fat, stretching me out. I need this,” she said breathily, as she put her hands on my chest and swiveled her hips in a way that sent a powerful surge of pleasure roaring through my body. She started to churn her pussy in tight little circles, even as she bounced her way down my length, slowly burying my fat length in the blissful ecstasies of her body until our bodies met and I was fully buried in that heaven.

  Then she started to work me hard, little gyrating circles and gripping squeezes, short little rises and falls as she bore down around me to milk me hard with her liquid friction.

  She’d been the best fuck of my life since the very first time, but that time it was even more overwhelming. It wasn’t the first time she’d worked for my pleasure in a wanton way, but it was the first time she worked so hard for my pleasure with a deep naked affection along with the lust, and an almost desperate need to express it to me. Just what she felt for me. Just what I was coming to mean to her.

  I was enthralled, entranced, and spellbound by her, and the pleasure of her body was exquisite as she started to work me over from above with twerking hips, while her breasts gently swayed and her upper body hardly moved at all. The look of naked need and desire on her face shocking in its intensity.

  If she’d been working me slowly, I’d have said based on all that, that we were making love for the first time. But on top of her emotional and giving surrender to me for the first time, it was also a wildly life-affirming fuck, as she rode me with hard intensity and was breaking out every trick in her impressive lovemaking repertoire to make me cum fast, to fill her with my warm seed. The pleasure she was giving me, and the intensity of it, was the fastest building and most passionate I’d ever felt in my life.

  We were both racing for the edge of ecstasy, and I was completely lost in her.

  There were tears in her eyes, as she gave of herself with an edge of wild desperation, not so much desperate for my cum, as desperate to give herself to me. It was the first time she was truly working just for me and my pleasure, and not for her own as well.

  I was hardly idle, but the soreness in my chest also meant I was kind of limited, she was pretty much in charge of us at the moment, but I did my best to add some subtle grinds of my own even if I couldn’t meet the same intensity of her impaling thrusts as she took me in over and over again.

  “Nora,” I said in an overwhelmed voice, her name turning into a grunting moan, as she pushed me over the edge.

  She slammed down on me and squeezed hard, then started to bounce less than a centimeter really fast, milking me hard to increase and lengthen my pleasure as I blasted my seed deep into her body. To milk as much of it out of my body as she could.

  Her own eyes rolled back in pleasure, and she cried out as she felt me release into her, that was the final trigger for her as she joined me in the heights of ecstasy. Her eyes wide with rapturous bliss and a potent vulnerability, as she gave me that lust and deep affection, the deep joy that I was still alive, through our connected eyes. It was overwhelming, what I felt from her with my empathy.

  It wasn’t love, just its sibling of tender affection mixed with perhaps a dollop of adoration. It was still too soon for love, but it was still potent and shockingly intimate as we rode that cresting wave together, until it crashed on shore and we both started to come down from our highs. Far more than just the deep and wild shallow lust we’d been sharing the first couple of days.

  She released a breathy pant as the pleasure let go of her lungs, and then collapsed forward on me with a wild and joyful giggle.

  “That was intense.”

  I chuckled, “Very.”

  I just held her then, as she broke down for a moment. The tears flowing, as the guilt and worry for me broke, mixing with the heady joy and affection of our whirlwind coupling.

  She sat back up, obviously in no hurry for me to leave her body.

  Rosaria had warned me all witches were born manipulators, but after what we just shared it was hard to imagine needing to be wary of her at all. We’d connected deeply and meaningfully.

  “Are you okay?” Nora asked.

  I nodded, “A little sore, but okay. We need to get the last druid stone and get out of London.”

  She sighed, “I know, and it’s my fault. I’m not sure we should take the train, we might have better luck at the ferry. Less cameras at the dock, the train station is fully covered, and there’ll be a lot less cops that may or may not be on the lookout for us. It’ll just take a little longer, about six hours, instead of three. Even if they didn’t catch us before the train left, they could call ahead and have cops waiting at the next stop, or even after we got out of the tunnel over in Ireland.”

  “We could talk to them.”

  She shook her head, “Too many witnesses saw the man shoot at us, and they saw us chase him when he ran out. I could go to Scotland Yard and manipulate someone in charge to call off the search and rubberstamp the case, but it’d be better to let the local coven handle it. As long as we get out of London with the prize, the problem will go away before the state department is brought in on it. I just need to call my coven and have them call the coven here. It’s a political consideration in our world, this isn’t my coven’s territory.”

  I nodded, “Alright, so museum and the late ferry.”

  She got up off of me, and the mattress cleaned both of us off, which made us both jump and look over at Rosaria.

  Rosaria grinned playfully.

  I pulled my pants back on, and it hurt a bit to get up, but I managed it with no more than a grunt. Then I grabbed my luggage and pulled out a new shirt, and I got it on.

  “Our luggage?”

  Rosaria said, “Just leave them here, I doubt anyone will come down here in the next few hours. I can retrieve our luggage quickly once we’re at the ferry docks.”

  That would work, the stones were the only critical thing we had with us, everything else was replaceable, and those were still around Rosaria’s neck. It was also an admission of how fast my water nature spirit could move or perhaps even teleport on her own, since London was fairly far from the west coast of Britain. The more I considered it, the more I was worried we’d never make it in time. We might not get the ferry until the next morning.

  I kissed Nora warmly, then I gave Rosaria a warm kiss. My Fae seemed a little worked up and breathy, her kiss needy and filled with desire, so I made a mental note to take care of that soon. Nora wasn’t the only one I wanted to be intimate with after almost dying, but we had to move if we were going to make the timing work. It was already getting a little late.

  She winked as the kiss broke, no doubt knowing exactly what I was thinking. Or at least, the general direction of it through our empathy link and the bond.

  We headed out.

  There were a few police on the way, but we managed to avoid being seen on our way to the museum. The city’s CCTV cameras were legion, but I was fairly confident we had avoided them, either by turning our heads in the other direction while passing, or outright avoiding entering their line of sight.

  The pagan museum exhibit was in a rather large room, and there were more people in it than I was truly comfortable with. There were dark burgundy ropes a foot in front of the display case, so I’d have to step over them to open it and get the stone out.

  On the good side, there was nothing to indicate an alarm on the case when I’d looked at it from all sides earlier. I was currently about twenty feet from it looking at something else entirely while I worked water molecules into the lock and unlocked it. There were two cameras in the room, one covering that area, and at the moment I was just waiting for Nora’s text. She’d already headed back to the security room.

  My phone beeped, and I checked to make sure it was her text, and I grinned at the cheeky witch’s text, which said that she wanted to come over for a booty call. I let out a little snicker, not quite able to help myself. Earthy witch.

  That didn’t help me with my problem though, there were about ten people in the room, a few couples and a family of four. When one left for the next exhibit, two more couples came in from the last one. It took me a moment to come up with a relatively simple plan.

  “I need you to distract everyone, over by that suit of armor.”

  She headed that way, and I walked toward the case which had the druid stone as well as other carvings of Connemara marble from that time period, including what looked like a ritual stone knife.

  I’d decided it was too risky even with a distraction to steal the eyes of everyone in the room in the opposite direction. Instead, I gathered up some water out of the air, and pushed it into the crack of the display case. I left some there, enough to lift the top of the case and open it just by pushing it up using the water. The rest of the water I sent to encase the stone.

  Perhaps I should’ve discussed possible ways to distract with Rosaria, because the distraction she chose had the suit of armor tumbling over. The clatter of the metal as the suit broke apart was extremely loud, and not only drew every eye in the room that way, but had several people running in to look that had been close to the doors.

  But it was good enough. I lifted the case top door just two inches on its hinges, then lifted the stone and floated it out so it slapped into my hand which was behind my back. By the time I lowered the glass top and locked the case back up, Rosaria was back at my side and took the stone I was holding behind me. Once she touched it, it should be invisible to the humans, and she casually put it with the others in the small bag hung around her neck.

  We headed back to the exit, as I casually texted back to be there in an hour, naked under her coat save her leash, high heels, and a butt-plug.

  It was ridiculous, even if a little salaciously humorous, but it was to a small purpose. If anyone was monitoring texts, there was no way they’d associate us to the museum robbery by their content. The real point was just to avoid saying anything incriminating in digital communications.

  The black car moved at high speeds, the driver focused on getting us the ferry docks before the last ferry of the day left. It’d take another six hours to get across the channel, which would make it close to eleven at night when we arrived. At that point Nora could call her coven and let us know if we were truly all clear yet or not, and we could get a hotel and sleep before taking care of things in the morning, and finally heading home. Well, there’d be one last trip in the morning, to the Galway area.

  We had all three of the druid stones, all that was left was getting to the right spot outside of Galway to return them to the same position they were in when the spirits were banished, and the renewal could then take place.

  It wasn’t an end of things though. It was a beginning.

  That was just the beginning of my new life as a druid in the supernatural world. I’d need to gather more power through bonding nature spirits, as well as get back with Katerina’s kiss in the predawn hours in the next few days to keep up my end of our bargain. Plus, study my magic and master it, cleanse the forest and rivers of pollution and chemicals in my chosen territory, and who knows what else that wasn’t even on my radar yet.