Page 3 of Captured in Love
Raphaël touches the pulse point on my neck, and I shiver. He trails his fingers down my collarbone then cups one breast possessively, flicking his thumb over my nipple. Even through my shirt and bra, the sensation is almost too much when my body is still vibrating with my release.
“You have such vivid thoughts,” he mutters. He closes his eyes, clenching his fists in his lap, and shudders. When he looks down at me again, his eyes are back to normal, almost completely human.
“I do?” I ask, not entirely sure what he means.
Before Raphaël bit me for the first time, he explained how drinking my blood also gives him a glimpse of whatever I’m thinking at the moment. He doesn’t have access to my memories unless I remember them specifically.
He darts his tongue out and swipes at the last drop of blood beading on the tiny pinprick he created on my wrist. The wound is already closed, the vampire venom working fast to help me heal and regenerate.
Then he kisses me, and I taste my own blood on his tongue, sweet and coppery and not at all revolting like I expected. There’s a hint of a flowery taste that I’m pretty sure is me as well.Huh.
As Levi readjusts himself, Raphaël smoothes an errant lock of hair from my forehead.
“You think in pictures and sensations,” he tells me. “With humans, I usually get just the basics, which makes drinking from you as different from them as watching movies is from looking at photos.” He pauses for a moment, then shakes his head. “And even that doesn’t compare. It’s a full synesthetic experience, and I’m becoming addicted.”
I blink. “Wow. Was it the same when you drank from Levi?”
Raphaël stiffens almost imperceptibly. If I wasn’t focused on his face, I would have missed the little flutter of his eyelashes and the way his gaze darts to Levi before coming to rest on me again.
“No, it wasn’t the same,” he says. “The experience was very striking, which leads me to think it’s witch blood that’s more potent, but his brain works differently than yours.”
I glance at Levi to find him scowling at Raphaël, his earlier sexy tension replaced by something altogether more sinister. For the first time, I wonder whether Levi is really okay with Raphaël being a part of this—both the Ballendial Games competition and our relationship. He’d shown no worries until now, but maybe I need to touch base with him, alone.
But something spurs me to dig just a little deeper. “What did you see when you drank from him?” I ask Raphaël, grinning. “Was it something really embarrassing?”
Levi snorts, but there’s no humor in his voice as he says, “Drop it, Moss.”
Raphaël doesn’t return my smile. “That’s his secret to tell.”
Secret?I turn back to Levi to find him stuffing his sweatshirt into his backpack. He peers up at me, then shakes his head, his green eyes shadowed.
Okay, then. We absolutely need a private check-in before we tackle any more life-threatening tasks. If his head’s not in the game, it could cost him his life—after Egypt, I know that’s not an empty threat. And that’s not something I’m willing to gamble with. We were ill-prepared for our excursion in the desert, despite all the gear we lugged in, and I won’t repeat the same mistake twice.
I pick up my tablet again and type a response to Princess.
Yeah, we’re fine. Just shaken. We’ll be more careful in Iceland.
I pause, then add another request.
Can you check on something for me? We met an Icelandic witch called Isak Einarsson in the Games. Something’s off about him, I just don’t know what.
She doesn’t reply immediately, so I log in to our witchy knowledge repository and open up a new entry for the god Set. With a sigh, I type everything I remember from the tomb—the hieroglyphs, the red-painted, violent chamber, the statue coming to life.
I don’t mention the connection to the Ballendial Games yet. The centuries-old magical competition will get its own entry after we’ve completed all the tasks. I’ve been putting off writing about it because…I’m still not sure what to make of it. The Games have a reputation for being the most prestigious magical competition in the world, and only the best magic users get invited. The fact that we managed to con our way into them still amazes me. I’d half expected to get hexed and thrown out on my ass the moment we entered the ancient Scottish castle that the Ballendial coven calls its home.
But even though I’d prepared for extremely difficult tasks and magical barriers, I hadn’t been ready for the fact that we’d be in danger of actually dying. And not only because the first token we’d had to collect had been hidden in an Egyptian tomb where ancient magic still lingered.
No, my main issue is with the automated lethal spikes that nearly impaled us as we descended the corridor leading to Set’s tomb. The very modern spikes triggered by a motion sensor that couldn’t have been placed there by anyone other than the organizers themselves. The trap they’d set was doubly dangerous because there had been nothing magical about it at all, preventing us from sensing it. If Raphaël’s quick reflexes hadn’t kicked in, Levi and I might have been skewered to death, and no one would ever know where we’d met our end.
It’s a sobering thought and one that nearly caused me to drop out of the competition. If that’s how these witches play their games, maybe I don’t want to play with them after all. In the end, however, I’d decided that the prize—twenty-four hours of access to the largest and most incredible magical library in the world—would be worth it.
I just wish Levi and Raphaël had allowed me to go on this quest on my own. I don’t want to be responsible for their safety.
No, that’s not it.
I don’t want them to think that they’re responsible for mine. This is my project, very personal and more than a little selfish. So their insistence that they’ll follow me to wherever this competition takes us is…troubling. If they want to be in a relationship with me, they shouldn’t have to also put their life in danger.
But did they listen to me when I explained all of that? No, of course not. They’d distracted me with kisses and sweet words, and now here we are, about to land in a country with no known presence of witchcraft.
