Visions of Magic by Regan Hastings Page B

of an image rushed through her mind and was gone in an instant. High cliffs. A cave. With a fire caged within.
    Frowning, she tried to grasp the image. Instead, it niggled at the edges of her brain, teasing a memory that refused to be born.
    â€œWhat is it?” he asked, reaching for her, pulling her up to sit beside him.
    â€œNothing. ’Tis nothing,” she whispered, not wanting him to think her mad, and unwilling to waste cherished time with him on foolish ramblings. And yet . . . “’Tis only that I feel sometimes as though there’s a part of me lost somewhere.”
    He stared at her for a long minute, then ran one hand over her breast in a slow caress. “Seems to me that all the parts are where they should be.”
    She sighed and arched into his touch, craving that sizzle of heat that slipped from his skin to hers. He had become as necessary to her as breathing and she wanted nothing more than to relish his hands on her body. Still, she said softly, “You laugh, but there’s something amiss, Torin. Something I must—”
    â€œHush now, lass,” he said, laying one finger across her mouth. “Don’t fash yourself over this. When the time is right, you’ll know. You’ll have it all. That time is not now.”
    His pale gray eyes stared into hers and Shea could have sworn she saw shadows moving there in those depths. Shadows of things that had been, things that would be. Her breath stilled while her heartbeat quickened.
    She shook her head, embarrassed by her foolishness and wild imaginings. And when she looked again into his familiar eyes, she saw only her own reflection staring back at her. Smiling, she asked, “What do you know of it, you great beast?”
    He grinned at her, one corner of his mouth lifting as he pulled her off the bed and onto his lap. Pushing her skirts out of the way, he had her straddle him, her bare thighs atop his.
    â€œBeast, am I?” he asked, slipping one hand beneath the fall of her skirt to slide his fingers up the length of her leg and toward her hot, damp center. She shivered in his arms and sighed out his name.
    â€œBeast is what you are,” she said then, “if you don’t give me what we both need.”
    â€œThen name me Torin,” he said, lowering her onto his gloriously hard body. “For a beast I won’t be.”
    He pushed himself home and she welcomed the invasion of his body into hers. She groaned and arched her back, swiveling her hips to take him higher, deeper. The thick fullness of him claimed her completely, as if he had been made to join his body with hers.
    His fingers at her hips, he gripped tight and urged her to move on him and so she did, because it was all she wanted, needed. Her body sang under his touch, her blood burned and her soul shattered. Again and again, she took him deep, hard, rocking on him, setting a rhythm that he matched and controlled.
    Their eyes locked and when the first of the pleasure ripples coursed through her, she looked into her beast’s eyes and almost—almost—found what she was searching for.

Chapter 13
    â€œT hey shot you.” The witch pushed out of Torin’s arms once they’d reached the nebulous safety of the treeline and stared at the bloodstains on his shirt.
    â€œIt’s nothing.”
    He’d flashed from the prison just as the bullets went flying, but still a couple of them had caught him. The bullets had passed through, doing little enough damage that he would be healed by the morning. Torin was unconcerned about a few bullet holes in his flesh. Compared to a slice from a broadsword, they were barely more than insect bites. Instead, he focused on the situation.
    Yes, they were free of the prison, but not free of the danger. The guards would soon pour out of the camp and begin searching the surrounding woods. They’d have to be long gone by then.
    Before he could say anything else, Rune spoke up.