Page 14 of The Witching Hour
I nodded.
“No. Witches—especially ones with my power level—use magic to fight.”
Sitting up, I tugged her with me to the edge of the bed, doing my best to ignore that desire that coursed through me at the sight of her naked body.
“I’m completely sure you can protect yourself with magic,” I told her honestly. “But I’d feel better if you were able to handle an enemy in every way.”
Celeste frowned at me as I stood and pulled her up with me.
“Why?”
I cupped her face in my hands and stared into her gorgeous eyes. “Because I can’t fucking live without you, baby. I need to know you are safe, or I won’t be able to spend more than a few minutes away from you.”
She melted into me, her expression going soft. “Okay.”
“Thank you, love.” I gave her a long, deep kiss but tore my lips from hers before I got carried away. “Come on, let’s get dressed, and I’ll take you down to the training rooms in the basement.” I winked. “I’m looking forward to pinning you.”
Celeste laughed and shook her head as she sashayed toward the closet. “Good luck.”
She took me to the ground several times at first, but after lecturing her about not using magic, she finally relented. However, once I had her pinned, we got in a whole different kind of workout.
7
CELESTE
With the strength of my magic, I never thought I would need to learn how to fight physically. But as each day of training with Ren passed, I discovered additional benefits. As my body grew stronger, so did my confidence. And my magic.
Being more in tune with my body from the drills Ren put me through had caused me to reflect upon how spells could be tweaked depending on the opponent I faced. My connection to the elements could be used for both offensive and defensive purposes, but my mother had never focused on how I could use the spells she’d taught me to defeat another witch. And I couldn’t help but wonder if her reason for avoiding it was because she knew that we’d face off against each other one day.
As though sensing my disturbing thoughts, Midnight twined around my feet, rubbing against my ankles with a soft purr. Bending at the waist, I reached down to scoop her into my arms. “Such a good kitty.”
“And such a beautiful consort,” Ren murmured from behind me.
Straightening, I whirled around to smile at him. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Not so bad,” he echoed, smirking as he stalked toward me. “Is that all I am?”
Rolling my eyes, I set Midnight back on the floor. “If you don’t know how incredibly handsome I find you, then I haven’t been a very good consort.”
“You’re amazing,” he disagreed, gripping my hips to pull me against his chest. “I just like hearing that you find me attractive.”
I leaned into his embrace, tilting my head back to smile up at him. “I figured that with how wet I get just from looking at you, you already knew that I think you’re the hottest man I’ve ever seen.”
“You make an excellent point, love.” He brushed his lips against mine. “Although, just mentioning your sweet pussy makes me want to sink deep inside you.”
My inner walls clenched at the raspy need in his voice. “You’re not going to get any arguments from me, gorgeous.”
“Fuck,” he groaned, dropping his forehead against mine. “I wish we had more than five minutes before Cian, Abel, and Aura show up to train with you. That’s not nearly enough time for all the dirty things I want to do to your delectable body.”
“I’ve done so much training already. Maybe we could skip this session?” I suggested, stroking my hands down his spine.
“As much as I’d love to say yes, you need ample time to become familiar with how my cousins fight. We don’t know how long we have until your coven comes for you,” he reminded me.
As if to emphasize his point, my cell phone rang. Tugging it from my pocket, I sighed when I saw that it was my mom calling. Again.
After speaking with my parents a few times—and their refusal to listen to anything I had to say that didn’t go along with their plans for me—I had been doing my best to ignore them. But they hadn’t made it easy since they called several times a day. And left multiple text messages.
They weren’t the only ones from my coven trying to get a hold of me, either. Over the past few weeks, Arthur had left me at least a hundred voicemails. The High Priestess had even called a few times.