He ducked his head, his breath whispering across her hip, right where he’d held her. “I burned you.” Slowly, he rose back up.
“What?” she asked, her amazing post-orgasmic glow starting to fade. “Huh?”
He wiped a hand over his wet brow. “Your hip.”
Her feet safely on the outside of the boots he still wore, she twisted her torso to glance at her hip. A perfect Celtic knot reddened and then, under her very gaze, turned white, like an old scar.
She blinked. “I don’t understand.”
He zipped up the jacket engulfing her and reached for her jeans, helping her into the wet cotton. Then he yanked up his own jeans, failing to button the top. A ragged sound emerged from him as he raked a hand through his hair. “I burned you.” His gaze slashed to her smarting shoulder. “And I bit you.”
The bite she could understand, but not the burn. “I don’t understand.”
He stepped away, bare chested, shaking his head. Emotion swirled through his dark eyes and tension choked the oxygen around them. “But how? You’re not enhanced. I woulda given you a choice. You have to believe that. If I’d known, if I’d even suspected, I woulda given you the choice.”
She shook her head, her focus narrowing. What the hell was going on?
Wait a second. He hadn’t stopped to remove the condom.
“Did the condom break?”
“No,” he choked out. “The condom burned away. That’s not the issue here.”
Had the man just experienced a mental break?
She reached out, tentatively, trying to understand. “What’s going on, Kell?”
“You must be enhanced, but I can’t sense it. Why can’t I sense it?” He took a deep breath. “I bit and burned you, darlin’. That means something. Forever, actually.”
He’d lost it. The man had lost his mind.
She dropped her hand. “Ah, okay.”
“Watch.” His chin dropped while he held his hands out from his bare chest and drew in a deep breath. Blue and then green danced along his arms and over his torso, morphing and cascading, finally licking into flames. Real flames.
Her mouth dropped open and her breath whooshed out. She shook her head against the illusion. “No.” Surely, the man was not on fire in front of her.
“The weapon that throws fire?” he rumbled.
“Y-yeah?” she asked He flipped over his hand, and a ball of electricity danced on his palm. With a flick of his wrist, the ball slammed into a nearby spruce, igniting the bark. The rain quickly quenched the fire, steam billowing around. “It’s me.”
Her mouth opened again and then closed. How? Why? “I don’t understand.”
“Well darlin’, there are a couple facts you need to come to terms with right now.” The surprise left his expression, leaving a determination that gave her pause. “First, and this is a tough one, I’m a witch. From Ireland. One of the Dunnes, an enforcer for the Coven Nine.”
She shook her head. A witch? God. There had to be a rational explanation. She just needed some time to figure things out. Figure out how he’d made fire, and why he was messing with her. Was that accelerant on him? If so, was it now on her, too? She didn’t smell anything.
Her voice wavered. “The second?”
“The second?” He stood in the rain, a powerful man, one she couldn’t figure out. “With the bite and the burn? I’ve mated you, baby. Welcome to immortality.”
Chapter 17
Kell kept his gaze set on the pale woman, hiding the turmoil boiling his blood beneath his skin. He’d actually mated her. As in mated, mated. For witches, hell, for most immortals, one didn’t just accidentally mate. Some believed in fate, some believed in love—even at first sight. But Kell? He believed in intellect, plans, and passion. In that order. Plus, and this was a big fucking plus, he hadn’t sensed one bit of enhancement in the sexy cop. Only enhanced humans, thought to be distant cousins to witches, could mate an immortal.
He hadn’t even given the idea a thought. She was not enhanced. But she had to be. He relaxed his body, tuning in his senses, and still couldn’t feel any vibrations of enhancement from her.
“You’re crazy,” she whispered.
Actually, he did feel the edge of insanity tottering nearer than usual. “I don’t believe in fate, Alexandra.” He sighed. “I also don’t believe in coincidence.” Was it possible? Was the feisty garda his perfect match? He’d been drawn to her from the beginning, not just intellectually or physically. Somehow deeper. Of course, he’d jumped right into exploring that by fucking her up against a tree. He had to figure out why she didn’t seem enhanced.