Love Bites by Angela Knight

innocents.
    “I’ve had to put mad girls down far too many times over my life.” Morgana turned to face them, pain in her green eyes. “If at all possible, I never want to do it again.”
    “Yeah, I get that,” Cador said. “But there’s a hell of a long way between creating something to keep women from going insane and wearing that collar yourself. You’re actually willing to let us collar you and strip you of your magic?”
    She tilted her chin in regal defiance. “Yes.” Just like that. Flat. Assured. Definite.
    “You sure about that?” Percival growled. He grimaced at the sound of his own voice; it sounded low and rough with lust even to his own ears. His cock throbbed like a sore tooth. “As you said, you’d be completely at our mercy.”
    Cador grinned, his eyes hungry. “And I assure you, we wouldn’t have any.”

FIVE

    I would expect nothing less,” Morgana said coolly. “But the collar does need testing. We have to discover whether it will burn out, or somehow harm its wearer.”
    Percival glowered. “If you aren’t sure, you don’t need to be wearing it.”
    She shrugged, causing arousing movement of her lush, thinly veiled breasts. “Better me testing it than some child.” Not that the girls they Gifted were actually children, but compared to Morgana’s centuries, they might as well be.
    “So in other words, by collaring you and stripping you of your powers, we’d be performing a public service.” Cador’s eyes gleamed as his gaze flicked hungrily from the collar to her face, then down again to her nipples. His smile took on the twist that meant he was contemplating doing something sadistic to whatever female who was presently in his sights. Except this time, his target was Morgana.
    Percival’s hands curled into fists.
    “I don’t think this is a good idea.” Marrok’s deep voice broke into his jealous preoccupation. “How do we know that it won’t do something to you? Strip you of your powers permanently?”
    Morgana glowered at him. “I know what I’m doing, Marrok. The collar’s effects are strictly temporary.”
    “And you know that how?” Percival demanded, eyeing her suspiciously.
    “I’ve worn it. As soon as I removed it, my abilities came back, just as powerful as always.”
    “Goddammit, Morgana!” Merlin’s balls, sometimes the woman had no sense at all. “What if the collar had depowered you permanently?”
    She shrugged, evidently secure in her own infallibility.
That, or she doesn’t give a fuck.
With Morgana, it could go either way. “Gwen would have reversed the spell. Or Kel. But the point is the collar worked exactly as it was supposed to. It’s perfectly safe.”
    “I still don’t like it,” Marrok growled.
    Cador grinned. “I do.”
    “That’s because you’re a prick.”
    “Enough,” Percival growled. His gaze dropped to the collar and lingered there as he shifted restlessly in his seat. Flashes of fantasy licked across his consciousness, hot as a sword in a blacksmith’s flame.
Morgana, mine to do with as I please. To punish and fuck however it suits me.
    As she’d been that one night centuries ago, when she’d fed him her blood. He’d never known why she’d run from him. But if he accepted her Oath of Service, she
couldn’t
run. She’d belong to him.
    A cooler, saner part of his brain sent up a blast of alarm at the steaming lust that roared through him at that thought.
This is definitely not a good idea.
He needed to talk her out of it. And knowing Morgana, he knew how. He gave her a deliberately nasty smile. “You might want to consider rescinding your Oath, Morgana. If we do this, you’ll be punished for what you did today. And you’re not going to enjoy it.” He let some of his darker fantasies show in his smile. “But
we
will.”
    Her gaze flicked down to the thick bulge behind his fly as he sprawled back on the couch. “Yes, I can tell.”
    The heat in him took on an angry simmer. “The first thing we’d do is