Wild and Free (The Three #3)(107)

“Climax?”

“Orgasm,” he clipped.

Another blink.

Bloody f*cking hell.

“Witch—” he started to warn.

“You didn’t get them all,” she declared, and he pulled back an inch.

“Pardon?”

“There were witches who held power that you didn’t burn or drown. You didn’t get them all. None of the ones who’d survived held the power of those your kind swept from the earth, and they have been using the powers they have left to hide for centuries. But that isn’t it. The important thing the vampires missed is that you didn’t destroy the implements.”

Fuck.

“The athame,” he murmured.

She nodded. “I know who has it. I know who used it on the hybrid. I didn’t know he was a hybrid, but the story went viral after she’d messed it up. She’s a little, well…out of it because she didn’t succeed in her mission and they were pissed and didn’t hide they were pissed. They went loco and didn’t care who knew it. But they have it. They actually have several blessed instruments that it isn’t real great they have. They sent her on that mission. They’re a coven. A powerful one. You’re fast and strong, but they have protections no way you’ll get through. You could bring a hundred vampires and you’d all burn.”

He drew in breath through his nose as he stood.

While he contemplated this new dilemma, she pushed to her feet and he noted what he hadn’t had the opportunity to note before: she was petite. She couldn’t be taller than five foot three. As he was six-one, he towered over her.

Another contradiction for he usually preferred statuesque women who met his height, or close to it, in heels. However, there was something immensely attractive about her stature and he was beginning to understand the escalation in the already-rabid protection that was his nature that Callum had toward Sonia. Sonia was small for a wolf, shorter, and when Callum met her, slimmer (though, Callum had seen to the last without delay, filling out his sister’s curves as was wolf).

Yuri had never felt protective of a female in his entire life, but regardless of the fact that he’d just been choking her, right then, he couldn’t deny he felt it with this witch.

He also couldn’t deny that he enjoyed the feeling.

He kept her pinned close to the wall simply by not moving as he buried these feelings that, at that time, he didn’t have the luxury to explore.

“You wanna save the world?” she asked softly, and he focused on her.

“I’m not hunting witches for the f*ck of it in the middle of a global crisis,” he returned.

She nodded, then asked another question. “It was really the hybrid?”

Yuri scowled at her for he’d already given her that information.

She studied him and she took her time doing it.

“Time is of the essence,” he drawled. “By my calculations, you have approximately three seconds to contemplate your desire to assist me before I make the decision for you and force you to do so.”

She straightened her shoulders and held his gaze. “You’ll need me to get to that coven.”

“And have you lead me to my burning?” he asked and shook his head. “I don’t fancy that.”

“Okay,” she said, throwing out a hand. “I’m not a big fan of vampires, and my mom would be, like, super pissed if she knew I was even thinking this, but for some messed up reason, I believe you.”

“That reason might be because I’m telling the truth.”

At his words, she smiled and he wished she hadn’t done that. It lit her eyes and made her smell like nothing but blood and sunshine and happiness, and he wanted that taste on his tongue so much, he felt it in his cock in a way it was not a desire, it was a need.

He made a warning noise in his throat.

She kept smiling. “And Mom would lose her mind if she knew I was gonna help you.”

“And you’ll be doing that by giving me the names of the witches in this coven and their location,” he prompted.

“Nope.” She shook her head. “I’ll be doing that by taking you to the witch who attacked the hybrid and helping you talk to her so you can get her story. Then I’ll be taking you to the coven and getting you in so they don’t burn you to oblivion.”

He opened his mouth to tell her she’d be doing nothing of the sort, but she kept going, lifting her hand to point her finger at him and assuming a severe expression that was far from severe and a lot closer to adorably amusing.

“No waterboarding,” she warned.

“Witch—”

“Or flaying, fingernail tearing, tooth pulling, or any of that other stuff you said. We talk, I do some hocus pocus, we get her story. But I’ll warn you now, she’s cuckoo.” She lifted her hand higher and circled her finger at the side of her head. “They did a number on her when she failed. But rumor on the witch vine is that she wasn’t all there before she went on that mission. So it might take some doing. We just have to do it without waterboarding.”

Yuri took a step back but didn’t retreat further. He simply did it so he could more comfortably cross his arms on his chest.

“And how am I supposed to trust you?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that what trust is? You just give it and, abracadabra, it’s there.”