Invoked Read online

  Invoked

  Dani Kristoff

  www.escapepublishing.com.au

  Invoked

  Dani Kristoff

  The final bewitching story in a trilogy about sexy witches and second chances…

  Earl Pressonville knows he made a mistake, but he never expected it to cost him his life. Well, most of his life. Some small part of him survives, but only as a shadow, a thought, a feeling…a purgatory of his own making.

  When a young witch, Nea Royston, comes near with her reader sense, something about her gentle touch draws him back to awareness.

  But there’s a darkness that’s also returned to Lake Macquarie, one that Earl has dealt with before. Having seen the light that Nea brings to the world, he knows that she will draw the darkness to her, and he vows to protect her at all costs. But Nea is looking for life, for love, for a future, and all Earl can ever offer is a dream.

  About the Author

  Dani Kristoff is an Australian author based in Canberra, the nation’s capital. She delights in reading and writing paranormal romance. For the last 15 years, she been concentrating her efforts on science fiction, fantasy and horror, and publishes under the name Donna Maree Hanson. In 2016, she left the public service to pursue a PhD at the University of Canberra. Her research area is feminism in popular romance fiction, which means she gets to read retro Mills & Boon, which is no hardship at all. Her partner, Matthew, is also a writer and they live in a big house overlooking the mountains.

  Dani has two paranormal series going, the first being Spellbound in Sydney with Escape Publishing. This series features witches and is mostly set in Sydney. She also has a darker more erotic series set in a different world system, starting with The Sorcerer’s Spell, to be followed up with The Changeling Curse. The Sorcerer’s Spell is based in Canberra and features sorcerers and werewolves and other magical creatures. It has a particularly nasty sorceress for a villain who uses sex to fuel her magic.

  Acknowledgements

  I have to acknowledge the wonderful critique of Kate Cuthbert in getting this story in shape and fit for publication. It has been a very difficult story for me to write, so hard I nearly gave up on it. That would have been my first abandoned story ever!

  I’d also like to thank Harlequin Escape for their support in publishing the Spellbound in Sydney series. To my good buddy Nicole goes thanks for beta reading, making suggestions and just being there to cheer me on. Thank you also to readers who have read Spiritbound and Bespelled. I hope you enjoy Invoked. It’s such a good feeling knowing that people have read and liked your work so feel free to contact me online.

  Dani

  Love can conquer many things …

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…

  Prologue

  Earl Pressonville sucked in a breath as Pris Denholm glided down the stairs, her crimson robe parting to reveal smooth white skin, rounded breasts and long, sleek legs. His pulse thrummed as he thought of her beauty and the keen edge of danger she represented. A smile lifted the corner of her mouth as her gaze tracked over him. The expression in her eyes, though, was cold and dark, with no glint of sexual attraction, no heat of desire. Earl swallowed. Doubt infiltrated his ego, like the creep of a spider across bare skin. She wanted him, didn’t she?

  For months now he’d been trying to get her attention, vying to be her consort. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, his breath hitched. Being up close and personal with all that dark, seething magic she exuded, was as tantalising as it was perilous. He was going to drink in her sexual power. Just thinking about what was going to happen next sent a shudder through him and teased his erection with need. Out of all the warlocks and humans that flocked around her, she’d chosen him, at last.

  Her robe slid from her shoulders and glided gently to the floor, leaving her naked before him. Her body was that of a Titian Venus, pale, bold and full of sexual promise. The eyes, though, brought goosebumps to his flesh as there was something empty in them, empty and brittle. He became conscious of the straps holding him to the dentist chair and how they cut into the skin of his wrists and ankles. This was not how he’d imagined his moment of triumph. This was not how he would amaze her with his physical prowess.

  Earlier, he’d arrived at her house and let himself into the audience room which was usually packed with her followers. It had been empty—just a few stained cushions and a couple of beer bottles that had dribbled pale liquid on the shabby, once-white carpet. He’d wondered if she was going to allow him to see her alone. Was their coupling not to be a spectacle like the ones he’d witnessed? The memory of her rutting with other warlocks had made him so hard he’d thought his cock would burst. His best friends had fucked her and all he had wished while watching them was that it was him. He wanted to lick and suck her moist clit and hear her moan as her ecstasy washed over them all. It was all he thought about, day and night.

  He didn’t know how he’d come to be down here in a basement tied to a chair. But he wanted to be there.

  She turned her back to him and he couldn’t see what she was doing. The air thickened, with scent, with need, with tentacles of magic. He shook his head, trying to clear it. A haze of incense teased his nostrils—powdery sandalwood and sweet jasmine. He breathed in deeply as he looked around, realising that he’d been out cold. Some unnamed dread lingered in the back of his mind. Something isn’t right! His gaze travelled over walls the colour of dark wine. It was the old house, Pris’s place, but his first time below the stairs.

  Pris turned, and a frisson of fearful delight sped up his spine. Anticipation widened his eyes, made his breath catch. ‘Pris,’ he whispered, his tongue feeling thick, his throat parched.

  Her eyes didn’t react but there was a hint of a smile around her full mouth. ‘Earl Pressonville, how good of you to offer yourself to me.’

  He struggled to see in the dimness. The flames of tea-light candles flickered and blurred. Her pale skin glowed and drew his attention. He fought the pull of her spell and looked away. Glancing up, he saw two small, blackened windows near the ceiling. An escape route. Like a shout from the darkness, his mind voice urged. Run! Now!

  Too late! She was there again—filling his vision with her loveliness. Earl was so hot for her he couldn’t look away. He wanted her, wanted to be there. He was hard and ready. So hard, he ached and throbbed and thought he’d die of want. He was desperate, needy. For six months his sheets had been soaked in sweat and cum all from thoughts of her, of how she moved, talked, magicked. This was the moment. He couldn’t back out now.

  He jerked an arm, but his flesh strained against the restraints. Trapped! Panic trilled through his blood. He feared being restrained, yet his eyes could only drink in the sight of her, and her magic soothed his apprehension.

  Her gaze appraised him and she sucked on her bottom lip. Then she wound the mechanism of the chair, stretching him out to lie horizontally. Still no hint of warmth from her, no flush of desire. Her look was clinical.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked hoarsely.

  ‘Keep quiet. You’ll interrupt my concentration and I need it for the ritual.’

  He lifted his head and gaped at her. Closing his mouth, he laughed the comment off. ‘Yeah right, ritual fuck.’

  There was a rustle of something and then
a sting. ‘I said keep quiet.’

  Earl was too surprised to cry out, even though the lash across his stomach smarted. She thwacked him again as he gripped the arm of the chair and growled through the pain.

  ‘Wait. Wait. I didn’t sign …’ Too late. The lash came again and something happened inside. It hurt but his erection grew even harder. Words feathered around his ears as she chanted, timing her strokes to the end of each line. Sometimes soft. Sometimes hard. Across his legs, his shoulders, his thighs, the strokes fell, just missing his erect penis, which was a granite spear of pain.

  As his yells and cries lifted to the floor above he realised this wasn’t anything like the shows he’d seen upstairs. They’d been kinky, on the edge a bit, but this was doing things to his brain.

  He moaned until her small hand caressed his balls. His whimpers died as she stroked the sore flesh of his stomach and chest. Anticipation rose inside. What would she do next?

  ‘That was—’

  ‘I didn’t tell you to talk. Shut it.’

  Trembling and weak, he quietened. Surprisingly, his erection remained. Hadn’t he come already? Clearly not, because as the whipping had ceased, he could still feel the pain in his cock. It was going to explode.

  She tightened the bindings on his hands and feet again, then lowered the chair so it was knee-height. This was it. She was finally going to fuck him. His breath hitched and his erection twitched. Elegantly, she straddled him, holding herself above him and catching his eye. Then she lowered herself. She had a landing strip of pubic hair and her inner lips were dark and swollen as they consumed his erection. Slick and hot, she covered him completely, her head thrown back, her abs rippling and her stomach muscles clenching. He tried to hold back the shout of pleasure and then she rose up, ready to ride.

  Mesmerised, he watched her. It was the moment. They were shagging, finally. He’d wanted to pleasure her with his mouth. He’d wanted to hear her cries, master her and have her adore him. There’d been none of that. She was calling the shots. He was the thing that was being played. This was not sharing.

  At the back of his mind, he wanted out. He wished he’d listened to his instinct and not come down here. It was a marvellous fuck but something wasn’t right.

  Her movements were hard and fast. She was power and muscle. He watched his cock disappear inside her, the rapid movements enthralling. Why hadn’t he come? He wanted to. He wanted to blow and get the hell out of there.

  The words of her chant fell around his ears. Glancing up, he saw her eyes ablaze with light. Magic stirred the air around him. Then he caught the glint of a knife, golden and bejewelled. Held above her head, it glowed in the candlelight as she rode him hard. He tried to focus, to pull the strands of his intellect and magic together. The ties on his wrists burned like flame. The ones on his ankles too. By the deities, he was not coming near this woman again.

  A burning sensation erupted in his solar plexus. Aghast, he looked down at the blood welling from the cut. He screamed and came and his power shot out of him, straight into her. Her mouth hovered over the wound, drawing in his magic.

  Blood magic! No!

  Weakness spread through him, making his limbs turn to lead, then he realised it was more than having his magic stolen. It was him she was stealing. His life force dragged from his helpless body, which was wrapped in befuddlement and restraints. Her skin seemed to swell, and her eyes burned so bright that the flesh surrounding them darkened.

  No, not like this. Earl wasn’t going to die. He was going to fight. Resisting the last pull of her mouth, he sequestered a bit of himself away. Yet, as his chest stopped moving and his body hung unresponsive in its restraints, he knew that there wasn’t much hope. He was alive but he was trapped in his dead body.

  The dark witch Pris dismounted his lifeless corpse, a satisfied smile on her face, and then she leaned in to suck the last of the cum from the tip of his cock. Earl fought back, metaphorically held on tight to that last drop until she stopped

  Maybe it was that that gave him some vestige of life. Aware, but bound to a sack of flesh that no longer lived and breathed, he was helpless to fight against his situation.

  ***

  They’d taken him to the old ruin next door, lifted the floorboards and dug a hole. Two of her human followers had tossed him in and shovelled dirt on top. He realised that there were others there in the ground with him. The friends he’d thought had taken their pleasure in Pris and then pissed off long ago. They were dead, truly dead. Unlike him.

  Later, as time rotted the flesh around him, Earl brooded, a dark brooding that allowed no light. He castigated himself and raged at the universe.

  A whole thirty years passed in the darkness. All hope faded. Earl was cloaked in despair and pain. But he was still not dead.

  There was nothing he could do to alter his situation.

  Chapter One

  Nea hauled the basket of groceries out of the car and lugged it up the path to Mary Parson’s door. As the screen door was unlocked, she opened it, then she continued on in. ‘It’s only me,’ she called to the darkened interior.

  ‘Put them on the bench in the kitchen, dear,’ Mary said from her rocker.

  ‘Hello. Sorry I’m late,’ Nea said as she walked through to the rear of the house and began unloading. She slipped the milk into the fridge, along with the cat’s food. A ball of fur brushed against her bare leg.

  ‘Hello Bart,’ she said and bent down to rub her fingers along the cat’s spine.

  She put the kettle on and prepared some tea. ‘So, Mary, how are you feeling today?’

  ‘I’m doing about the same, dear. I’m sorry to be a trouble.’ Her feeble voice reached Nea from the front sitting room.

  Nea detected the depression in Mary’s tone and went to where the old woman sat staring out into the street. Nea’s talent as a reader worked on humans as well as folk, and she could see Mary was not only feeling down emotionally but physically too. Mary had been a good friend of her grandmother, and now age was taking its toll. ‘It’s no trouble. I’m making some tea. Do you mind if I sit with you for a while?’

  Mary frowned, her already wrinkled face crinkling further. ‘Only if you have time.’ The elderly woman didn’t take her eyes from the street.

  Nea pulled her ponytail undone and refastened it. ‘No trouble at all. I want to hear about your adventures with Bess.’

  After ducking back into the kitchen to make the tea, Nea soon found herself sitting across from Mary and taking a bite of a cookie.

  Mary sighed after taking a sip. ‘You look so much like her.’ She tilted her head to the side and studied Nea. With a definitive nod, she added, ‘It’s the way you smile. You have Gregor’s blue eyes though. No mistaking them.’

  ‘Grandpa misses her a lot. We all do.’

  ‘I’ll be joining her soon.’

  Nea sighed, suddenly at a loss for words. It was true. Mary was going downhill pretty fast. There wasn’t much Nea could do about it either. Her grandfather may have been able to slow his ageing, but Mary Parsons was a human, non-folk, and there was nothing Nea could do. So she spent an hour with Mary, listening to the stories of the past before she headed out again.

  Her next visit was to an old witch, who’d had her magic stilled because she wasn’t able to control it anymore.

  ‘You again,’ Pru Hepworth said when Nea came to the door. ‘Bringing more of your charity?’

  Nea beamed. ‘It’s not charity. You contributed to the coven and now the coven owes you.’

  Pru huffed and then let her in. ‘Your grandfather should have ended me. Shouldn’t have left me like this. Good for nothing …’

  Nea had heard this many times. Pru wasn’t old as such but for some reason which hadn’t been discovered her talent had started to fluctuate wildly. As this had been during a coven ritual, and someone had been badly hurt, Gregor, Nea’s grandfather, had had no choice but to calm her talent until an answer could be found. Unfortunately, no solution had been discov
ered as yet, and Pru was in the depths of despair and liked to share her morose feelings about her predicament.

  Nea’s reading sense slipped easily into Pru. While the surface of her emotions were aroused and swirling with feeling, beneath she was calm. She made a mental note to mention it to Gregor. Perhaps Pru’s problem was righting itself.

  ‘As we’ve discussed before, it’s temporary until the healers and can work out the problem.’

  ‘It’s been six months.’

  ‘I know,’ Nea said as she delivered the groceries and the books Pru had requested. ‘I hope they come up with a solution soon.’

  ‘Sure you do.’ Pru’s tone was harsh.

  Nea swung around. ‘Of course I do. Do you think anyone enjoys the position that you are in? That we don’t feel for you? That we can’t imagine what it must be like to be missing a part of yourself?’

  Pru’s eyebrows rose, her eyes rounded and her lips tightened.

  Nea realised she had spoken out of turn. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have raised my voice. I—’

  ‘No … no … you’re right. I am feeling sorry for myself and paranoid. Thank you for taking care of me. You are really very good to put up with me like you do.’

  Nea patted her hand. ‘Really it’s a pleasure. I’ll ask Gregor to come talk to you about progress. Okay?’

  Pru’s eyes lit up. ‘Really? Thank you.’

  Nea squeezed the older witch’s hand. ‘Of course, I will.’ She checked the time on her phone. ‘Look, I’d better go. I have some more errands to run.’

  ‘Goodbye. Thank you and my regards to Gregor.’

  Nea sat in the car, wondering if she should go back in and talk to Pru more. Losing her power was more than the other witch could bear. Her talent was integral to who she was and living without it wasn’t much better than being dead. However, Gregor had asked her to visit a new family that had moved to the area. That meant she had insufficient time to delay now. She wanted to get to know the newcomers and tell them about the activities of the coven and also give them general information about the neighbourhood.