CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Where’s the book?” Paul asked as Mellie returned to the kitchen holding only the potion bottle.
Did he sound just a little too eager? Mellie tried not to worry about showing the book to this relative stranger. The book itself had centuries of protections woven into every page and special magic in the bindings and covers that kept it all much safer than a single witch could hope to do. The book had layer upon layer of witchcraft upon it, but would it be enough to stand up to the dragon’s probe, if he had bad intentions?
Mellie certainly hoped so. For now, she had to see if her potions were a match for the dragon shifter’s enormous power.
“Here.” Mellie slid the potion bottle across the table to Paul. “A standard binding potion. Are you familiar with them?”
“I have come across them a time or two,” Paul admitted, taking the small cork out of the top of the bottle and sniffing cautiously.
He used the spoon from his coffee to take a drop of the liquid out of the bottle and examine its color and consistency. Then, he seemed to focus his gaze on it, and what looked like fire leapt from his eyes to incinerate the droplet of potion in the spoon, sending a puff of clean white smoke upward. Paul nodded then looked back at Mellie.
“It is as you claim,” he pronounced. “And very strong. My compliments.”
Mellie had never seen anyone do anything like that before. She guessed it was possible that a dragon could shoot fire from his eyes and know a purpose and potency of a magical substance, but it was a new one on her. This day just got stranger and stranger.
“If you’d allow a drop of that to touch your skin and speak the words, I’ll allow you to see the book,” she told him.
The potion would bind him to whatever promise he made while it was active. So, if he promised not to try to steal the book or use anything he happened to see in it within about five minutes of the potion being absorbed into his skin, then he would be magically bound by that promise forevermore.
Most witches couldn’t manage a permanent binding potion, but just like Urse’s permanent wards, Mellie’s potions were built to last. She would feel much more confident if Paul gave them some promises she could be certain he would keep.
“As you wish,” Paul intoned, bowing his head but not breaking eye contact as he held out his left hand and poured a good dollop of the potion into his palm.
He wasn’t messing around. Just a drop would have done the trick, and allowing it to be absorbed by his left hand—the one closest to the heart—made the magic even more potent. He had to know that.
“I, Paul Lebchenko, solemnly promise to the good people of Grizzly Cove that I will cause no harm to anyone here who does not first try to harm me. Furthermore, I promise Amelia Ricoletti, the potion strega, that I will not try to steal, subvert, or use without permission anything I happen to see in the grimoire that has been entrusted to her care. The book is hers to protect, and I will not attempt anything untoward in the pursuit of my own goals.”
Wow. He really was going all out. Mellie felt the binding take hold, and it was a powerful one. As far as she could tell, the dragon’s innate magic wasn’t repulsing her potion, but blending with it as he took on the binding freely and of his own volition. Voluntary magic was often the strongest kind.
Mellie stood as John thanked the dragon shifter for the promise not to harm anyone in his town. She went back to her spell room and got the book. She couldn’t have asked for a more complete statement from Paul. She’d done all she could to be sure his intentions were pure. Now, she would have to trust that her preparations had been thorough enough.
She came into the kitchen, and everyone hushed. The book carried a palpable magic of its own that everyone in the room could feel. She laid the book on the table and held her hands over it. As before, it opened to the page of the spell, and no other.
“This is the potion I propose to brew. Crafted first by strega Pilar of Andalusia many generations ago.” Mellie noted John craning his neck to try to read the spidery writing on the page along with Paul. Peter had seen it before, as had Urse, so they seemed less interested in the book and more interested in watching the dragon.
“I do not speak this language, but I recognize some words. This is dragon, right?” Paul said, pointing to the word. Mellie nodded. “And that’s the word for… Blood?” Paul sounded shocked. Shocked and angry. He rose from his chair rapidly and towered over the table, a hint of his beast showing in his eyes as they grew slitted and inhuman.
Mellie’s throat went dry, but she had to fix this. “You’re right,” she told him in as reasonable a tone as she could manage. “This spell does call for exactly three drops of blood, freely given. It is not, however, the kind of blood magic I believe you are thinking of. It is not evil. Pilar was not evil. She was—if legend can be believed—mated to a dragon. I didn’t understand how that could be true until I found out that dragons could be shifters. Pilar was mated to one of your kind, and he allowed her to access his magic in this way. Blood magic of this kind is not evil. It is a benevolent form of self-sacrifice, blessed by the Mother of All.”
“I would never allow blood magic in our town,” John piped up. “I spoke to the girls’ grandmother about this when Urse first told me the details of the spell. I wasn’t any more comfortable with the idea of blood used in the ritual than you appear to be,” he told Paul. “But I did my research and spoke to Nonna Ricoletti and our shaman, Gus. Since I mated with Urse, I’ve been learning all sorts of stuff about how humans handle magic that I never knew before.” John reached for Urse’s hand and shared a loving glance with his wife.
The dragon grew still and watchful, but it could still be seen behind Paul’s human eyes. Unearthly. Watching. Measuring. Ready to strike, if necessary.
Scary as hell.
Mellie swallowed hard and tried again. “Shifters mostly know of blood magic because of unscrupulous sorcerers who try to steal other magical folk’s power by taking their blood and using it in horrific rites that go against everything we strega hold dear.” Mellie took a breath, trying to gauge how well her words were being received. “Evil mages will often kill beings of power—other mages, shifters, and Others—to steal their magic. They’ve even been known to kidnap shifters and hold them captive, bleeding them over a period of time to build up the pain magic and prolong the torture. That is as far from the voluntary giving of three drops of blood under the blessings of the Goddess as you can get. Ask Peter. He participated in my last attempt at this potion, and we actually managed to protect a small part of the beach with that one.”
“You did?” Paul’s gaze shot to Peter’s, skeptical.
“I thought my bear blood might be strong enough to do something, and I would do just about anything for the protection of this place and its people. They are my family, and this place is now my home. There was nothing in the making of the potion that felt wrong,” Peter told them all. “Mellie’s power is pure and of the Light. I saw it for myself when I agreed to help her with that brew.”
Instead of speaking, Paul moved closer to the table, still standing, and held his hand over the open book. He closed his eyes and seemed to reach out with his magic to touch the magic of the book. Mellie could almost see the vast powers intertwining and communicating in some arcane way.
After a moment, Paul dropped his hand to his side and opened his eyes. “The book is neither good nor evil in itself, but the protections laid on it over the centuries are of a benign variety,” he pronounced. Again, Mellie was surprised at the things he could discern. Dragons were something special, that was for sure. “I must think about this and seek counsel from the Lady.” His eyes looked troubled and still slightly inhuman. “Warn your shaman. I may have need of the standing stones entrusted to his care.” Paul turned toward the stairs. “I’ll be back in town tomorrow.” He shifted his gaze to Peter. “If your grandmother is willing to meet with me, I would still like to talk to her.”
“I’ll ask her and make the arrangements. I’m pretty sure she’ll be intrigued enough to want to meet you,” Peter replied.
Paul nodded once, and still looking troubled, he left. Mellie felt her spirits drop.
“Do you think I scared him off?” she asked morosely.
Peter reached out and squeezed her hand, offering comfort. “The blood thing is a tough one,” he told her. “We shifters have only known the bad side of blood magic, but I’m confident he’ll figure out that has nothing to do with what you propose to do.”
“It was brave of you to step up and try to help Mellie,” Urse put in, smiling kindly at Peter.
“I could do no less,” Peter replied, still holding Mellie’s hand.
They sat in an awkward silence for a couple of moments until finally John stood, his chair scraping back loudly against the plank floor. Urse stood a moment later and followed her mate’s lead in picking up her empty mug and heading for the sink with it.
The Alpha couple left after just a few more words. Urse made Peter promise to look after Mellie, to which he readily agreed, and John just told them to be careful and to call if they needed backup. Then, they were gone.
“Alone at last,” Mellie said, grinning at Peter.
He drew her into his arms and just held her tight for a long moment. So much had happened in such a short time.
“Tell me I wasn’t dreaming. You’ll be my mate, right?” he whispered, hoping he hadn’t misread her response somehow.
“Only if you’ll be mine, too,” she joked, looking up at him with a light of mischief in her pretty eyes.
“Zvyozdochka, I was yours from the moment we first met. It took me a little while to figure it out, but I was a goner even then.”
“Really?” Her smile turned coy. “Well, if we’re being honest, I’ll have to admit that I thought you were hot from the very beginning. I mean, the guys in this town are all pretty amazing, but there was something special about you from the start. I thought maybe it was your accent, but now, I know it’s just…you.” She ran her hands through his short hair and made him want to revel in her touch. Would she like his bear form as much? He certainly hoped so.
He kissed her. The kiss was filled with the knowledge that they were meant for each other and she had accepted that fact. Satisfaction and yearning for more drove him to lift her up and carry her into her bedroom. There would be no stopping them now. They were mates.
She’d agreed to be his mate. How could a guy get so lucky?
Her clothing joined his on the floor of her bedroom as he worshiped his mate, his love…the one person who was meant for him in all this wide world. Peter made love to her slowly, savoring the experience. It was every bit as powerful as their first time together. Perhaps even more beautiful because, this time, he knew it was the beginning of something that would last a lifetime.
*
Mellie came down slowly from the incredible climax Peter had just given her. They were in her bedroom. Again. He was still inside her as she lay half over him at a somewhat awkward angle. She could fix that…as soon as she caught her breath.
Peter’s strong hands roved over her hips and adjusted her. He was so strong. She liked the way he manhandled her as if she weighed no more than a feather. He made her feel feminine in a way she never really had before.
Mellie had always been kind of quirky, with her own sense of oddball style. The men she’d dated in the past had been mere boys compared to Peter. They’d been hipsters and grunge guys. Nerds, for the most part, though there’d been that one metro-sexual dude she’d almost gone for. Peter was a man’s man. Like most of the shifter males in Grizzly Cove—according to their mates—he was an animal in bed as well as out of it, and he made her feel like a woman with a capital W.
He resettled her more squarely on top of him, still riding his newly hardening cock. The motion renewed her interest, as well, and she started thinking about a long, hard ride. Emphasis on the hard.
Peter caressed her breasts as she lifted up, resting on her forearms so she could look into his lovely, intense brown eyes. She could see the bear behind his human gaze at certain moments, and it lit a fire in her veins to know that he was such a powerful being…and that he was all hers.
The possessive feeling was new and thrilling. She’d never been on such secure footing with the man in her bed before. Most of her serious relationships—not that there had been that many—had been less defined. She’d gone into them expecting more, perhaps, but in the end, receiving less than she’d hoped for. None of the men she’d taken into her life had worked out in the end for long-term relationship.
She’d been sad each time she broke up with someone, but quickly realized her heart hadn’t been fully engaged in any of those trial situations. She’d been practicing. Waiting for this. For Peter. For the one man designed just for her. The one she would spend the rest of her life loving and living with. Raising children with. Or maybe they’d be called cubs, since some of them would likely inherit their father’s shifter nature, though she hoped for at least one little girl of power to carry on the strega tradition.
Yeah, she might be getting a little ahead of herself with the daydreams, but it was fun to think about the future with Peter. And it was especially fun to practice the moves that would help populate her future with little mini-me’s.
She lifted up higher, sitting hard, taking him deep. Peter was fully erect within her now, his eyes swirling with that dark earth energy that she found so alluring. She could feel their magic sparking off each other, but it wasn’t a showy sort of clash. No, they meshed so beautifully that her energy was as low-key as his, though both were pretty intense. Together, they could have created a conflagration, if they both weren’t so much in control of their power.
She rode him hard, loving the way her touched her breasts, her body, her hips, guiding her into the motion he wanted on occasion. He let her take the lead for the most part, a willing participant in his own seduction. Mellie felt powerful. Like some sort of femme fatale. Mata Hari at her best. Beguiling and enticing her chosen mark.
Peter grunted as she squeezed his cock from within, using her body to please his in ways she hadn’t ever really dared try before. Everything was new with Peter. Her soul was cleansed by his fire. Her heart bathed in his care. She was daring in a way she could never have been with anyone else. Only Peter. Only her mate.
When she came, she screamed his name, triumphant in the ecstasy they shared. She felt him pulse within her as she froze in a spasm of pleasure so intense it almost blocked out the sun. She felt as if she was part of the Light. Part of the star at the center of existence. Part of the cosmic unity that allowed all beings to have such incredible experiences.
This was what life was all about. Loving and being loved in the most carnal way. Exchanging trust as the most basic level. Being one with another person as pleasure swamped your body and soul.
After that incredible orgasm, Mellie must have dozed because she woke up several hours later, the scent of savory herbs and cooking meat wafting in from her kitchen. Peter must have decided to forage in her fridge for something to eat and discovered the lack of leftovers. She smiled as she tidied herself and pulled on a silky robe she kept at the back of her closet.
They’d missed lunch if the angle of the sun was anything to go by. It looked like it was probably mid-afternoon, but she didn’t mind. The bookshop was closed for the day until that uncalled for magic charm dissipated.
Mellie went into the kitchen to find Peter—his muscular chest bare and sexy—just putting the finishing touches on some steaks. Her nose wrinkled as she squinted. There hadn’t been any fresh steaks in the fridge.
“I popped down to my shop and restocked your fridge,” Peter told her. “You only had rabbit food left, and I’m not big on salad.” His grin made her smile in return. The image of a giant bear eating lettuce popped into her head.
She went over to the refrigerator and opened it, surprised to find wrapped cuts of meat of every kind filling most of the previously empty space. He’d put a small fortune in fresh meat in her fridge!
“You didn’t need to do that. I meant to go shopping and pick up a few things, but I’ve been a little preoccupied.” She turned back to him. “This is too much, Peter,” she told him seriously.
He finished shutting off the burners he’d used and came over to her. “Nothing is too much for my mate,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist and drawing her close for a deep kiss. Before she completely lost her head, he pulled back. “We should eat before it gets cold.”
Ever the gentleman, he escorted her to her seat at the table, pulling out the chair and seeing to her every comfort. He put the plates on the table before taking his own seat. He’d set two places next to each other at some point before she had woken up. He’d thought of everything, it seemed, from the steaks to the wine he served with it, which hadn’t been in her apartment that morning.
“Would you come to my den for dinner?” Peter asked her at one point.
“Of course,” Mellie replied. “Are you sure your grandmother won’t mind? I know she came a long way to see you.”
“She will love having you around, believe me,” Peter assured her. “I need to talk to her about Paul and see if she will talk with him.”
“Do you really think she will?” Mellie asked before taking a bite of her succulent steak, which was cooked to perfection.
“I think so,” Peter said, tilting his head as he seemed to ponder the situation. “But my babushka can be contrary sometimes. She isn’t always easy to predict.”
They talked about his early days, living in Kamchatka and learning from his family and especially his babushka. The meal passed in a haze of happiness, at least on Mellie’s part. She couldn’t really be sure how Peter was feeling, though he was certainly smiling a lot, so he probably was as happy as she was.
After the excellent steaks were consumed, Peter cleaned up the kitchen while Mellie put the bedroom to rights. She changed the sheets and put the old ones in the washer, along with some other whites that had piled up over the past couple of days. Who had time for housekeeping when you were trying to fight giant, magical sea monsters and entertaining dragons?
When they got to Peter’s house late in the afternoon, his grandmother was nowhere to be found. Peter didn’t seem worried. Instead, he set to work on dinner preparations after telling Mellie to take a look around the house and get comfortable.
She felt a little strange wandering around his place by herself, so after a cursory look around the living room, which she had seen before in any case, she went into the kitchen area to help him. He didn’t say anything about her lack of nosiness, though she thought maybe she’d caught a glimpse of disappointment on his face before he turned away to get something out of the fridge.
He gave her some potatoes to peel and put her to work. They teased each other and stopped for occasional smooches while they worked on the meal. Helping Peter was nothing like cooking with her sister, but it was special in its own way.
“I’m going to have to teach you how to help with some of my Italian specialties,” she told him at one point as he seasoned the meat he was working on.
“I love Italian cuisine,” he told her. “I guess it’s in the blood, seeing as how I just found out the other day that I’m at least part Italian.” He grinned at her. “You’re going to have to teach me all about my heritage.”
“I look forward to it,” she told him, meaning it. “Starting with how to make the perfect meatball. What do you say we begin lessons tomorrow?”
“Just tell me what we need, and I’ll get it tomorrow,” he replied immediately. “I look forward to my first lesson.” Then, he paused to kiss her, taking her into his arms and holding her tight.
At some point during the kiss, the front door opened. Peter didn’t seem in any hurry to stop kissing her, so she was a little fuzzy on exactly how long the clinch lasted before he released her. Peter had that effect on her. Like a drug to her senses, he could make her lose track of space and time.
All she knew was that when he released her and she opened her eyes to look around, Peter’s grandmother was grinning at them from across the room. Blushing, Mellie looked at Peter, but he had a smug smile on his face. She punched him on the arm, but he didn’t budge. He merely went back to work on dinner, whistling a jaunty tune.