Reflected Desire. Kendra Leigh Castle
no, I’m fine,” Neve blurted out, embarrassed that she was so obviously rattled. “Thank you, though. I was just admiring the things you have in here. It’s really…unusual, what you’re selling.”
“Unusual, yes. Dangerous, some would say. But things worth having are often worth bleeding a little for, don’t you think?”
A smile, both inviting and knife-like. Neve had to fight back a shiver. That smile held the promise of as much cruelty as compassion.
“Um, I prefer to avoid blood if at all possible,” Neve said.
“A wise decision.” The woman’s laugh was warm and genuine, but Neve still felt nerves flutter deep in the pit of her stomach when a slim hand was extended. She took it, and felt the hum of power ripple right up her arm.
And yet, she had no interest in pulling away. A sense of peace and calm enveloped her almost immediately, a pleasant fog that made her feel as though she’d just been wrapped in a lovely dream.
“I’m Morgan. Morgan le Fay,” the woman said, in a voice as rich as the velvet she wore. “Welcome to Wicked Little Things, home of the maligned, the misunderstood and, of course, the magical.”
“Neve Logan,” Neve heard herself saying, though she felt oddly detached from her body. “Did you say magical?” This didn’t seem like one of those little Wiccan shops she and her friends occasionally liked to visit. Then again, there was something really odd about this place…and Morgan, who seemed to have named herself after the most famous witch of all. Couldn’t be her real name. No way.
Morgan shrugged, a dainty lift of the shoulders. “Someone has to take care of them. They’re all hopeless on their own. And we can’t all be knights on white chargers.” Those amazing eyes narrowed. “Or brats who yank swords out of stones. But I digress.”
Neve lifted her eyebrows, feeling lost as well as foggy. “I’m sorry…take care of who?”
Morgan shook her head, an inviting smile replacing the irritation of a moment before. “Never mind.” She tilted her head to regard Neve, her eyes piercing. “Hmm. Let me see. Battered, but not broken. Brave and strong beneath the wounds. A good heart—that’ll be a switch for him. And of course, lovely. You’ll be just his type, not that I’ll get any thanks for it. No wonder you were drawn here. The Fates always know, meddling old biddies that they are.”
Neve swayed on her feet, beginning to drift into sleep. “What?”
“Oh, pardon me,” Morgan said, quickly withdrawing her hand. “I haven’t had a customer in a bit. Not one who I’d sell to, at least. I sometimes forget that a little goes a long way.” She turned her head, glanced toward the shadowy back corner of the shop.
“Come with me, Neve Logan. I’ve got just the thing for you.”
And despite the fog enveloping her thoughts, Neve was strangely certain that Morgan did.
Chapter Two
Adrian did not know how long he’d slept, but he knew the moment he awakened that he had a new master. Shifting his naked body in the tangle of silken sheets, he opened his eyes and looked drowsily, resentfully, at the glow now emanating from the floor-length mirror on the wall opposite. The magic mirror, bane of his very long existence.
Adrian groaned low in his throat and sat up, looking around the tower room he’d been confined to for more than a thousand years. He’d stopped keeping track at three hundred. At that point, it had been too depressing to continue counting.
The slide of silk against his newly awakened body had his cock stirring in wasted arousal. Adrian gritted his teeth and tried to ignore it, the rush of need he’d never fully been able to get rid of. After so long alone, he’d thought he might simply lose all interest in sex, in the thought of pumping into a willing woman’s softness until he spent himself. But if anything, his need had only grown keener. And it was dangerous, so dangerous for a slave to allow himself to want.
It had nearly been his downfall once already. He’d sworn never to let that happen again. He couldn’t, or he would become nothing but a shattered mind trapped in this miserable glass.
He got to his feet, glancing at the flickering candles that never went out, and were never spent. Adrian let his gaze wander over the familiar trappings of his long life, feeling deep in his bones that he had slept much longer than usual this time even though nothing had changed here. That was no measure: nothing ever changed here. Books were stacked haphazardly in a bookcase, gifts from various masters and all read hundreds of times. A comfortable chair, a table covered in various implements useful to a mage like himself—or rather, useful in keeping him in the good graces of those he was forced to serve. A small table with a single chair, where he could dine on anything he liked with nothing more than a spoken request. A massive tub. A darkened fireplace. And tall, thin windows barely more than slits in the stone through which he could look out on the illusion of an endless night in a world that had once been his.
And of course, there was the bed: massive, sumptuous…and something his first mistress had enjoyed making use of. She had used him so much, and so poorly, that he had appeared to every master since as nothing more than an inhuman spirit at the glass. It had, at least, allowed him some measure of peace in this wretched, enchanted place. The few women he had served since had simply used his power to draw other unfortunates to their beds. But he had known that eventually, one would ask to breach the glass barrier again. And he would be forced to let her in.
To be a slave in every sense, to serve her physically whether he wished to or not.
Pushing aside the dark thoughts, Adrian padded across the rug to the glowing glass, pausing only to draw on a simple robe that he’d draped over the back of his reading chair. He didn’t want to look: he’d served so many masters and mistresses, and all had been greedy, violent creatures, consumed with gathering more power and crushing others beneath it. For a long time, he’d watched in fascinated horror, able to see out, though they could not see in. Eventually, he’d had to turn away.
Nothing good ever came of those he served. Fitting, as he was so very cursed himself.
With a feeling of dread deep in his stomach, Adrian touched the glass, and the curling mist beyond cleared. What would he be doing this time, he wondered? Murdering enemies? Corrupting innocents? He expected to look out and see nothing more than the human embodiment of more cruelty, which was all he had known for ages.
But what he saw stopped him cold.
Hair of raven black. Lips as red as the rose. Skin as white as snow.
Adrian watched, fascinated, as a woman whose beauty could only be called exquisite examined the other side of the glass, seemingly without a single clue he was within. She was dressed strangely to him, though he had come to expect such things. He liked these clothes, the breeches that hugged slim curves, the fitted shirt that clung to a generous pair of breasts and a long, slender waist. Loose waves of midnight hair tumbled over her shoulders, and she shoved it back with one hand while she examined something, some carving in the frame beyond. Big, thickly lashed eyes of deep sapphire-blue looked at the glass, looked through him.
Still, in the brief moment her gaze touched his, Adrian felt heat suffuse his body in one dizzying rush. What fresh torment was this to be? She was bound to be as bad as the rest. An enchantress, probably, like Melisande, his first mistress. The one who had bound him to this accursed place. But Melisande was nothing but a pale shadow of this woman, a cruel and artificial beauty who had gone to extreme and bloody lengths to keep her looks.
No, he had only seen this woman’s equal once, long ago. That one had never known he even existed, which was just as well…considering his power had been used to attempt her murder.
As he watched her look over the mirror, frowning lightly, he noted that she looked…confused. Displeased. And still, she made no attempt to call him. Biding her time, he supposed. Making him wait.
Finally, she settled her hands on her hips, shook her head and turned away.