Branded: That Old Black Magic Romance (Heart's Desired Mate) Read online

  The joy that had filled him frittered to dregs. This wasn’t Xara. He couldn’t hunt for whatever drew him. Why the hell hadn’t he gotten used to the status quo? He’d been here plenty long enough to move beyond falling into a funk when truth slapped him in the face.

  A flash of headlights brought reality crashing down fast. He wasn’t alone anymore. And it wasn’t very dark. If the occupants of the SUV cruising along mountain roads twisting below him were a posse of illegal hunters, they’d use high-powered lights. Not that they’d be focused on the skies, but what if one of them looked up?

  He curled his taloned forefeet into hard knots of anger. Fire shot from his mouth before he got the primal parts of himself under ragged control. These were his mountains. His. The interlopers had no rights. He could blast their puny automobile, turn it into a heap of smoking, twisted metal.

  Yeah. And the minute I do something like that, I’ll have to leave Stillwater. Remaining would be too big a gamble.

  Leaving Stillwater meant leaving his cave, and he wasn’t ready to give it up. Not yet.

  He wasn’t able to shroud his dragon body with invisibility spells. As a fallback measure, he cast a don’t-look-here enchantment and flew in a straight line back to his truck. He left the SUV that had no business in his territory behind without incident and shifted in a blaze of light before his feet contacted the ground.

  Not much he could do about the last part. Shifting without fanfare wasn’t possible. He dressed fast, trying to latch onto the simple pleasure that had rolled through him while he was airborne. It eluded him. All that remained was hollow resignation.

  If he couldn’t locate a mate, he couldn’t return to Xara. It was part of his punishment, the part designed to ensure he’d never trick another mated dragon shifter into sharing his bed. Not only were dragon pairings permanent, the partners were always faithful to one another. Even the ones who’d stopped having sex never took another lover.

  He slid his jacket on over his top and raked his hands through his shoulder-length hair. Settling in with a mate meant the end of fun. The end of experimentation. The end of spying a lovely, buxom lassie and plotting to bed her.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” he muttered. “How many times have I done that lately? Zero. Minus zero if you consider how long it’s been since my cock’s seen aught but my hand.”

  He splayed his fingers over the chilly metal hood of the Chevy, half expecting talons to form.

  They didn’t.

  At least he was facing his problems tonight, not circumventing them like he usually did. What it came down to was simple enough. Did he want his freedom more than Xara? Or did returning home trump everything?

  Forever was a long time to remain alone. A long time to be an exile, repudiating his true nature. A long time to string one-night stands together—if he ever found the energy to sink into seductions again.

  He pressed his fingers into the metal, not surprised when it dented beneath his touch. Nothing in this godforsaken place was built to last, but why should it be? Men didn’t live very long. Never mind products rolling out of their factories didn’t even match their puny lifespans.

  He pushed harder, deepening the dents. He was missing the point. This wasn’t about shoddy quality. It was about him and what he wanted. He had to make a choice and stick with it. No more games. No more jokes. No more putting everything off for another day.

  He pulled the car door open, amid the protest of rusty hinges and aging metal, and jumped nimbly into the driver’s seat. For once, the high-mileage engine kicked over the first time he tapped the ignition. Maybe it sensed his foul mood.

  He nosed the truck around and started toward home, forcing an open mind, one where thoughts bubbled up as they formed. He wasn’t even off the mountain before disgust for the half-life he’d been living coated his tongue with a bitter residue.

  Hiding his dragon nature went against the grain. He may not agree with his kinfolks about mating—or anything else—but he’d suck up his misgivings. He needed to return to Xara. Needed to offer his dragon far more than the occasional furtive flight and pathetic hoard.

  A sense of peace flowed from his midsection outward as he nudged the truck through a dark and silent Stillwater and thence toward his purloined miner’s shack. Inner harmony, where he wasn’t fighting himself, had dodged him since his exile. He welcomed the strength that came from not engaging in constant Socratic dialogue. Or anger. While a great diversion, it never solved anything.

  “I made a decision,” he muttered to the darkened cab. “It feels right, but where the hell will I find a mate?”

  He ground his teeth in frustration. Probably not in Stillwater, but he’d been thinking about leaving, anyway. Maybe sooner rather than later would be just the ticket.

  Chapter 2

  Aisha Colewright built her nightly spell around the stable housing a dozen Arabians. The horses whickered in response to the feel of her magic bathing them with protection. She raised them and sold them, just like her mother and grandmother had done before her. Many of her customers came from other countries, but she always insisted they show up at her ranch before she agreed to let them purchase any of her stock. Nothing like meeting someone up close and personal to assess if they’d provide an acceptable home for her darlings.

  Satisfied nothing would disturb her babies through the night, she started across the expanse of yard between the barn and the house. The evening was cold and clear, the sky shot with millions of stars. She wrapped her arms around herself and stopped, gazing at the wonder scattered above. She’d always wanted to fly, but contrary to urban myths about witches and their broomsticks, flight wasn’t part of any witch’s supernatural bag of tricks.

  A crackle of magic jigged across the blackness, and she cocked her head to one side wondering what spawned it. Stillwater was home to a hodgepodge of magical types, but most of them didn’t hold all that much power. Plus, it wasn’t the kind of thing that ever entered polite conversation. Humans still held a clear majority in her small town—everywhere else as well—and an unspoken code among those like her was to downplay any and all paranormal abilities.

  She curved her mouth into a grimace. Damn, what a difference a hundred years made. Her grandmother had been in great demand as both a healer and matchmaker. Her love charms worked, and people paid handsomely for them. Aisha worked her magic with her breeding stock under the proverbial table. Only she knew why her babies were so special, bred for both endurance and speed.

  Shaking her head, she covered the remainder of the flagstone path with its runic carvings and let herself inside the house. The scents of sage and hemlock met her nostrils, and she hurried to her small altar. Tonight was the third—and last—night of her ritual. Feeling foolish, she lit a red candle scented with mint and anise and shut her eyes.

  Bright the Flame.

  Bright the Fire.

  Red is the color of my heart’s desire.

  Aisha repeated the incantation three times, visualizing Liam behind her closed lids. Liam with his curling copper locks, emerald-green eyes, and lanky, broad-shouldered build. That man had an ass on him that was to die for. High and tight and well-muscled. She’d lusted after him for months, but flirting hadn’t gained her more than a quick smile before he strode off to attend to something.

  “Yeah, nothing normal did the trick,” she muttered, “so here I am, sunk into my witchy ways.”

  She opened her eyes and rolled them. So far as she knew, Liam kept to himself. Maybe he preferred boys, but she didn’t think so. Gay men activated a certain frequency of her magic, and he came through as hetero, pure and simple. With a final recitation of her spell, this time in Gaelic, she blew out the candle. The die was cast. No red-blooded male should be able to resist her after that incantation, and she’d find out tomorrow if she’d done any good.

  Or the next day. In theory, Liam should move heaven and earth to chase her down, but she had a feeling things might not play out quite that way. Mostly because, he
might not be human.

  She’d caught glimpses of what may have been magic clinging to him, but it could have been wishful thinking on her part. Aisha strode through the downstairs of her modest home. One large room, it consisted of many floor-to-ceiling bookshelves jammed with magical tomes and scrolls. One end of the downstairs contained an old Wedgewood cookstove, a fridge, and a generous pantry overflowing with dried herbs and home-canned bounty from her garden. The other end held leather furniture and a battered oaken table with four chairs in need of repair. She had electricity but preferred candlelight or kerosene lanterns. A ladder led to the loft where she slept. A lean-to off the kitchen held an old clawfoot bathtub, a commode, and a sink. The bathroom was an add-on since this house had been built over a hundred years before. A combination of spit, elbow grease, and magic kept it standing.

  Nothing fancy, but it was comfortable. More importantly, it was hers. No mortgage. No one to answer to. She’d inherited the ranch house, along with the horses, from her mother, who’d taken over from her grandma. Witchiness was passed through women, from one to the next in line. Male children sometimes had power, but never the good kind. Most were weak as yesterday’s used-up dishwater and abandoned what magic they had long before hitting adulthood.

  At least they didn’t have her problems blending in with humankind. For all practical intents and purposes, they were human.

  Not so for the small percentage of male witches born with destructive magic. At least their proclivities were obvious almost from birth. Warlocks kept to themselves, living in a hidden compound somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. She’d asked a lot of questions, but that was as close as she’d come to an answer about them or their secret society. She assumed someone ferried them to the northlands—and made certain they remained there—but how that happened was anyone’s guess.

  She poured herself a glass of homemade elderberry brandy and settled into a creased-leather easy chair, pulling an afghan across her lap. Soft and creamy, the woolen folds tucked around her, cradling her body. Her grannie had knitted that afghan, and she missed her.

  Aisha sipped the brandy, enjoying the burst of summer brilliance the berry concoction created in her mouth. Crafted with magic like everything else around her, the liquor reminded her of family and love, hearth and home. She blew out a sad breath. Living with humans, trying to blend in, cost a whole lot. Her grannie and mom were still very much alive, but not anywhere close. Not aging normally—never mind not dying for several hundred years—carried a stiff price. She hadn’t faced moving on. Not yet, but the day would come eventually just like it did for all witches.

  She tightened her grip on the glass and then set it on a nearby table before she shattered the hand-blown crystal. Before she could leave Stillwater and join her witch family, she had to produce a child. Someone who could pick up the banner and care for the horses that were part and parcel of her birthright. Aisha drew breath all the way to the bottom of her lungs before blowing it out.

  Her spell to lure Liam was admittedly self-serving, but she had to have sex to create a child. No guarantees her offspring would be female, either. So she might have to go through more than one pregnancy. Everything had to happen over the next few years too. She’d spent her life in Stillwater, which meant everyone in town knew she was north of thirty. Pregnancies happened to women in their thirties but were damned rare after that.

  What if Liam was magical, and her spell backfired? Some combinations weren’t good bets, and she’d jumped blindly down Alice’s rabbit hole when she set her sights on him.

  Aisha slogged more brandy down, nearly draining the glass. Fortified, she lurched to her feet and returned to the small altar where she practiced magic. What she was about to do wasn’t precisely forbidden, but nor was it first-line magic.

  She switched the red candle for an ivory pillar fragrant with pine, lit it, and chanted, swaying with her words. The air around her developed an electric charge, prickling her skin and drying the saliva in her mouth to sharp clods of mucus. She straightened, staring at the shimmering, glowing space in front of her.

  As she expected, her grandmother came into view. Silver hair cascaded to her knees, and she focused shrewd hazel eyes on Aisha. Eyes uncannily like her own. Victoria Colewright crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Well? This best be good, granddaughter. Have you gotten yourself into a right mess and can’t find your way back out again?”

  Aisha stood straighter. “You might say that. I cast one of your love charms, but I didn’t do much research ahead of time, and—”

  Victoria didn’t wait for her to finish. “You want me to give you a rundown on the one you have your eye on?”

  “Something like that.” Aisha kept her gaze trained on the apparition floating in the air a few feet away. It was good to see her grandmother. All crust and bluster, but with a no-nonsense approach that appealed to Aisha’s sensibilities. Now wasn’t the time to appear cowed or deferential.

  “Well.” Victoria crooked two gnarled fingers. “My mind reading skills aren’t all that sharp in my astral form. I need a name.”

  Feeling foolish, Aisha swallowed hard, a neat trick as dry as her mouth was. “Of course. It’s Liam Fiontan. He’s—”

  “Ha! I know that one. You may have bitten off a wee bit more than you bargained for, granddaughter. You say you’ve finished the casting?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Why didn’t you summon me sooner, for once in your life?”

  “Because you always give me nine kinds of hell for not solving my own problems. Grannie. You have to say more than that.” Aisha smothered annoyance tinged with apprehension. What had she signed on for?

  Victoria narrowed her eyes and angled her head to one side, regarding Aisha. After a pause so long, Aisha wanted to reach through her spell and shake her grandmother, Victoria said, “No. I don’t have to say another word. And I’m not going to. You got yourself into this. I trust you’ll find a way out.”

  Anger rushed through her in a white-hot tide. Before she got hold of her temper, Aisha made a dive for her grandmother’s projection, clawing at the air. Her leap was stellar, but she landed belly first on the dusty floorboards, wind knocked out of her.

  “None of that, my dear.” With a finger shake followed by a snort, Victoria vanished in a shower of silvery sparks.

  “Goddamn you!” Aisha rolled to a sit and shook her fists at air still glistening with leftover magic. Her heart pounded hard, and she panted, working to draw air into lungs that felt as if a five-hundred-pound giant perched on her chest.

  A strident meow followed by scratches at the kitchen door drove her to her feet and across the room. Of course, the cat would want in. It had belonged to her grandmother originally and would have sensed the old witch’s presence.

  “Hold on,” Aisha called and yanked the door open.

  Hector strode in, tail held high. Coal black and at least twenty pounds, he was large as cats went. He glanced her way with odd eyes, one blue, one green, and growled as only a pissed-off tomcat could.

  “Yes. She was here,” Aisha agreed.

  Mrroowww. Swish. Swish.

  “I’m sure if she’d stayed longer, she’d have hunted you down.” Aisha tried for a reassuring note even though this wasn’t a cat who craved anything normal.

  Hector strode to his empty dish and glared daggers at her.

  Now didn’t seem the time to remind him of the rich mouse population roaming the ranch. She grabbed a sack of kitty chow and poured some into his dish. Hector focused on his food, ignoring her now that she’d done as he wished.

  Of all the creatures to end up immortal, or damned close to it, why’d Grannie choose the bloody, fucking cat?

  Aisha knew better than to voice thoughts like that aloud. If any animal understood human speech, it was Hector. Giving him a wide berth, she plopped back into the leather chair she’d vacated earlier. Her grandmother knew Liam by name, which might mean one of the many books in this house held information. r />
  “Yeah, but I’d at least need a starting place,” she muttered. If her charm worked, it would happen fast. She wouldn’t have months to cull through her witchy library hunting for clues to Liam’s identity.

  Enlightenment arrived in an untidy rush; she slapped her forehead, annoyed by what a dolt she’d been. She was making this far more difficult than need be. She could simply ask him who he was, what type of magic he possessed.

  Worst thing that would happen is he’d decide she was a few cards short of a deck—before the charm took over and he screwed her silly.

  The more she thought about a direct approach, the better she liked it. If he sought her out, as she expected he would, she’d swathe them in spells and mention her grannie knew him. Maybe it would be sufficient to loosen his tongue. She’d have to disclose her magical pedigree, but now that she knew he was some iteration of magic wielder too, perhaps it wasn’t as big a risk as all that.

  She looked longingly at the brandy bottle, but it wasn’t a good idea. She needed her wits about her, not a fuzzy brain. With all the finesse of a left-end tackle, Hector flew over one of her shoulders and catapulted into her lap, digging his claws in to stabilize his landing.

  “Ouch!” Aisha focused a quick jab of power at the cat’s razor-sharp claws. He hissed but otherwise ignored her efforts to displace him. It was rare for Hector to demand anything of her beyond food. Usually, she was good at picking information out of animal minds, but his had always been closed to her probing.

  Aisha began in a logical spot. “You miss her, huh?”

  A deep, rolling meow burst from the cat.

  “Yeah, I’d love it if she and Mom were still here.” Aisha took a chance and stroked his head. Normally, attempts on her part to mollify him ended up with him either biting her hand or taking a swipe at her eyes.

  Unbelievably, Hector leaned into her touch. After one more plaintive meow, he switched to purring. Aisha’s mouth fell open. The cat had never warmed to her mother or her. After Victoria had faked her death and moved to points unknown, Aisha had caught her mother grumbling about the cat many times. When she’d asked why they didn’t find another family for the unruly feline, her mother’s tart reply skirted the issue. Aisha’s take-home message had been that magical creatures picked their abodes, not the reverse.