by J. N. Baker
Baldric was suddenly in front of me, catching me as I fell forward. “You should lie down.”
“I can’t breathe!” I shouted, trying to push past him as he wrapped an arm around my middle. “I need out. Let go of me. Let me go!”
The door swung open behind Baldric to reveal a wild-eyed Josh. His presence was just enough of a distraction for me to get out of Baldric’s arms. I shoved away from him, staggering out the door and sprinting down the stairs and through the castle, scrambling to get outside before the entire structure crashed down on top of me.
The second the stale ocean air hit my face, I collapsed to my knees, taking in heaving breaths of the salty night air. I bowed my head, digging my fingers into the frozen earth as the snow whipped and fell around me.
Heavy footfalls came up behind me but I didn’t bother to look up at the two men I knew were standing here.
“I need to leave for a while,” I said to the ground. “I need to clear my head and digest all this. I will come back,” I added, crawling to my feet.
I didn’t wait for Baldric to respond, heading into the storm. Numb feet carried me farther from the castle, following the edge of the cliff until Baldric’s kingdom disappeared behind me in a swirl of white.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d walked or how far. I followed the steep cliffs at a human’s pace through utter darkness until it felt as though I was standing on the edge of the Earth, one misstep away from slipping into the abyss below. Only my heightened senses kept that from happening. Though there were times I contemplated throwing myself over the edge to let the saltwater wash the blood off my hands.
Next thing you know, twenty years have passed and, no matter how hard you scrub, there’s still blood on your hands.
Markus had been right about that, only it wasn’t Baldric who’d put the blood on my hands. It was William.
Eventually, the cliffs disappeared and the land leveled off with the ocean, and still I walked on through the storm, traveling over rocky beaches, the mist from the turbulent waves surrounding me. It almost felt like I was back home. The home William never should have taken me from. But did that mean Baldric should have been the one to take me instead? Would it have been any better?
When it felt as though I’d finally outrun my problems, I stopped, only to have those same problems come crashing into me like the violent waves against the rocks crunching beneath my feet. It knocked the air clean out of me and I doubled over, bracing my hands on my knees as I tried to catch my breath.
Lies, all of it. Everything William had told me from the moment he forced me into his little army. William had used me for his own selfish gain. And now Baldric was using me for his—whether it was to defeat William or not. Both men wanted me for my power. Both men wanted to rule what was left of the world. Both men could go right ahead and fuck off.
Straightening, I stared into the dark stretch of water to my left before taking a step toward it. And then another and another until the icy water washed over my booted feet, splashing up against my shins and soaking the bottom half of my pants. Still, I took another step.
“Zoe!”
I turned toward the familiar, somewhat panicked, voice to find Josh sprinting toward me through the swirling mass of snow. He was the only light left in my world.
“Get the hell out of the water,” he shouted.
All of a sudden, the water around me receded and I thought I saw a tentacle slipping away with it. Josh rushed to me and grabbed hold of my arm, yanking me away from the ocean as he released his hold on it, the waves chasing us as he dragged me back to the rocky shore.
He sat me on a bolder. “I know you love the water, Zo. But, seriously, stay out of the ocean here. Baldric has some fucked up creatures out there and I don’t know how far out they go. I’m talking ripping flesh from the bone kind of shit.”
I stared at said ocean. Baldric wasn’t the monster I’d been told he was, but he was still clearly the king of monsters if the creatures that did his bidding were any indication.
“He sent you after me.” It wasn’t a question. “He didn’t trust me to come back.”
Josh kneeled in front of me, placing his hands on my thighs. “No. He was worried about you and asked me to make sure you were okay. He didn’t think you’d want to see him right now.”
He got that right.
“Did you know?” I asked Josh, meeting his icy stare.
His expression was grim. “You had to hear it from him.”
I was standing before I realized I’d moved. “You should have told me,” I raged, jabbing a finger into his chest. God, it felt good to let the anger replace the pain—the betrayal.
“You never would have believed me,” he retorted. “You probably didn’t even want to believe Baldric.”
And I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for that damn marking on his back, the same one I wore on my chest. I let out a shuddering breath, raking trembling fingers through my wind-tangled hair. “They’re both fucked in the head,” I said instead, and Josh’s lips pulled up at the edges.
“That might be true, but now you at least know who the least fucked up of the two is.”
And that was the problem. Baldric was supposed to be the ultimate bad guy. I’d been working—killing—for years, only to now find out I was working for the real bad guy. In many ways, that made me the bad guy too.
“William made me kill for him,” I whispered. “He made me into a monster all so he could get what he wanted.”
Josh grabbed my wrist as I started to pace across the dark beach, pulling me into his arms and enveloping me in his warmth. “You thought you were doing what was right,” he told me. “We all did. You couldn’t have known he was lying. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
That was exactly what William was. And sometimes, wolves needed to die. Slowly.
“Do you think the others know?” Annie’s sweet innocent face flashed through my mind, and I just couldn’t believe she’d be okay with what William was doing. She was hardly okay with things as they were. And Cody, no way would he go along with that.
“No,” Josh said, shaking his head. “Not all of them at least. Those who have been with William for centuries, maybe. But the newer ones, like you, I highly doubt he’d tell them. It’d be too risky. Besides, most of William’s people are programmed to think Baldric is the true enemy.”
Yeah, because William had used past telepaths to ensure that was the case. To think all this time, I’d thought it was Baldric doing the mind fuckery. Was anything I’d been told in the past seven years true? Was any of it real?
Josh. The way Josh felt about me.
If I knew nothing else, I knew that much was true. He’d always been my one constant. When he told me he loved me, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he meant it. I could feel that love coursing through my veins, wrapping around my blackened heart. He was mine and I was his, from now until the end of time. Or until he ran that dagger through my heart.
But this, this strange and powerful bond between us—it was real, even if everything else in my life hadn’t been.
“We should head back,” Josh said when I didn’t respond, brushing the loose strands of hair away from my face as he looked down at me. A chill slid down my spine that was anything but unpleasant.
We were well and truly alone out here in the darkness—other than whatever monsters lurked beyond the deep. I didn’t want to go back to Baldric’s castle. I didn’t want to go back to reality. I just wanted to stay here in our bubble together for as long as possible.
My fingers dug into Josh’s back, his shirt bunching in my fists as I pulled him closer, feeling the fire build between us despite the falling snow. “I don’t want to go back yet.”
“Zoe…” Josh’s voice was strained as he breathed my name.
“I gave Baldric my word that I’d come back,” I said, inching forward until my chest brushed against his, the violent waves crashing into the rocky shore mere feet from where we stood. “But I didn�
�t tell him when.”
Josh closed his eyes like he was in pain, taking in a shaky breath of salty ocean air. “If I start now,” he said, glowing blue eyes finding mine in the darkness, “I don’t think I’ll be able to stop. No matter who shows up.”
His words had the ache between my legs growing, my stomach doing a little flip as I watched him struggle to stay in control. I knew his desire to have me had shot through the roof since his transformation. But I didn’t want him to control himself with me. Not tonight.
I caught my bottom lip between my teeth, running a hand down his chiseled jaw. “I don’t want you to stop,” I told him and meant it. “Claim me, Josh. Make me yours.”
That was all the encouragement he needed.
Josh’s lips crashed into mine, claiming my mouth in a punishing kiss that had my legs turning to Jell-O. My hands snaked up his neck, fingers tangling in his hair as a moan slipped from my lips.
He lifted me off the ground and my legs automatically wrapped around his middle, trying to get impossibly closer. Josh growled into my mouth as I ground my core against the growing bulge in his pants, his fingers digging into my ass and leaving temporary bruises. I rolled my hips into him once more. There were too many damn layers between us.
As I reached to rip his shirt off, he caught my hands in his. “Not here,” he said, panting as his eyes darted to the dark waters at my back.
Before I could tell him that I didn’t give a flying fuck who or what saw us—I’d take him in front of God, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus at this point, not to mention Baldric—his mouth was back on mine and he was carrying me away from the rough waters.
His lips never released their hold on mine as we moved not-so-blindly through the pitch-black night, farther from the ocean and into the unknown. I was so consumed with the glorious heat Josh’s kisses were igniting within my body, I hardly paid attention to where he was taking me. And honestly, I didn’t care, as long as we were together. I trusted him implicitly.
Josh nipped at my lip and my hips rocked into his instinctively, feeling his own hunger for me straining to be unleashed. The friction his pant-clad erection was creating as it repeatedly rubbed against my core with each step he took was nearly enough to have me coming undone. Nearly. I growled in frustration. Too. Many. Damn. Layers. I needed him inside me…like six damn years ago.
Suddenly, Josh stopped, slamming me into a wall that seemed to appear out of nowhere. He pinned me to the side of the structure—a cabin?—the rough, weathered wood scraping against my back as he leaned his muscular frame into mine.
My legs unhooked from his narrow waist and I slid slowly down his body, feeling each delicious ripple of his abdominal wall through his shirt. A shirt that needed to go. And then he had my arms above my head, my own shirt inching higher and higher while Josh’s mouth continued its assault on mine.
Josh broke the kiss just long enough for his power to pull my shirt the rest of the way over my head, letting the fabric fall to our feet, forgotten. Then his mouth was back on mine, like he couldn’t bear to stop. Like if he didn’t kiss me, he’d die. His hands slipped around my bare waist, sending goose bumps across my flesh as his fingertips danced along the small of my back.
“My angel,” his whispered against my lips. “Burn with me tonight.”
The door beside us creaked open and Josh tore me away from the wall, backing me into the cabin, his hands never leaving my flesh as we kicked off our boots.
As we entered, the musty scent of the cabin hit me, along with just a hint of familiar saltiness from the nearby ocean. The structure wasn’t big and part of the roof had caved in from a fallen tree, collecting a fresh pile of snow from the storm. But it was perfect. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes on because we were in it together. Alone. Just Josh and me and no one and nothing else.
Josh’s hands slid higher, finding the back of my bra. He paused, his eyes meeting mine. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice strained, hands beginning to tremble at my back.
“I’ve never been surer of anything in my life,” I told him.
He released the breath I was sure he’d been holding. “Thank God.”
Making quick work of the clasp, he removed my bra and I shivered as the chilly night air caressed my naked breasts.
“You’re wearing entirely too many clothes,” I told him as his eyes feasted on my bare flesh. I reached for the bottom of his shirt and yanked it up and over his head the old-fashioned way. Couldn’t exactly undress him by seeing into the future, and I didn’t think he’d appreciate me burning it off him.
I tossed his shirt aside and did some feasting of my own, my mouth watering at the sight of him as the ache between my legs only grew. Would I ever get sick of staring at this man? I highly doubted it. Greek gods, eat your hearts out—this man was perfection come to life. And he was all mine.
I ran a hand down his muscular chest and over his chiseled abs, stopping at those delicious oblique muscles that gave me the world’s biggest lady boner. He shuddered under my feather-light touch and I bit the corner of my lip.
“If you keep doing that,” he ground out, “you’re going to have me coming in my pants like a damn horny teenager.”
“I’m going to lick these one day,” I mumbled in response.
Josh growled, his hands reaching for my pants. In a blink, he had them around my ankles as a gasp escaped my lips.
He stepped back, his eyes trailing down my body and back up again, my flesh burning under his intense gaze. If he kept looking at me like that, I was sure I’d spontaneously combust.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he breathed, his hands going to the top of his own pants. “Stunning.”
Josh popped open his pants and shoved them down his hips, his very erect—very large—cock springing free.
My eyes widened slightly—at least I sure as shit hoped it was only slightly—and my throat worked to swallow. Cody clearly hadn’t been exaggerating.
“Don’t worry,” Josh said, catching where my eyes had landed. There was just the slightest hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “We’ll take it slow.”
I bit my lip once more, this time drawing blood. “Maybe I don’t want to take it slow,” I whispered, and his eyes dilated as he sucked in a breath.
I stepped forward and wrapped a hand around his throbbing member, giving it one long, slow pump. Josh’s head rocked back and he groaned, sending a bolt of electricity straight to my core. I loved having such an effect on him. I stroked the velvety skin once more and Josh’s hand enveloped mine, stilling it.
He crushed my body against his, his erection pressing into my belly as he claimed my mouth for the umpteenth time. It wasn’t nearly enough. I needed so much more. I’d never have enough of this man.
Tongues tangled and bodies entwined, he moved me farther into the room until the back of my knees collided with something soft. With one push from Josh, I tumbled onto the bed which was blessedly clean aside from some debris. Not that I really gave a shit. I would’ve let him take me on the floor. Hell, I’d almost let him take me in front of Baldric’s little ocean beasties.
Josh stood hovering over me, devouring me with his eyes. “Perfect,” he whispered. And then he leaned over the bed, hooking his fingers into my underwear and tearing them in half.
I looked up into those icy blues, eyes that had been part of my life for as long as I could remember, seeing myself—the real me—reflecting in them.
“I love you, Zoe,” he whispered into the dark, as if reading my mind. “And I will love you until eternity itself ends, and even then, my love for you will never die. You are my heart. My everything. It’s always been you. Nothing and no one will ever change that.”
I blinked back the unspent tears. “Only you.”
He took hold of one of my ankles, placing a soft kiss on the inside of it, and I bit back a moan. Who would have thought ankles could be so erotic? He trailed wet kisses up the inside of my leg, his scruff scratching at my skin.
I squirmed, needing his hot mouth higher. My hands fisted in his hair, trying to tug him to where I wanted him.
In response, he nipped at my inner thigh, his fangs scraping against my sensitive flesh, making me gasp. “You’re not in charge here, my angel,” he said and my pussy clenched. “And I plan to make this last as long as possible.”
As if to prove a point, he switched to my other leg…back at my ankle.
Maybe it’d be me who killed him with that bloody dagger instead.
By the time he’d worked his way up again, I was panting and writhing beneath him. My whole body felt as if he’d set it on fire, my skin burning deliciously under his touch. As he reached the apex of my thighs, he ran the tip of his nose across my pubic bone before placing a single kiss to it, my hips bucking in response. I was so close already.
“Josh…”
“I’ve got you,” he whispered, his breath hot against my core. And then his mouth was on me, and I was positive I’d somehow found redemption and died and went to Heaven. Though I didn’t think even Heaven could be this divine…or dirty. Josh’s wicked tongue swirled around my clit before he sucked it gently into his mouth and I cried out at the surge of pleasure that rocketed through me.
I felt his finger at my entrance, and I whimpered, my own fingers tangling in his hair as he slipped that long finger inside me. He pumped it and out of me in slow strokes, zeroing in on that sacred spot within. And then he added a second finger, his tongue still flicking over my sensitive bud. The combination of his mouth on me and his fingers filling me had me dancing on the edge. I could feel the orgasm building within me. And building, and building…
It was too much. And yet, it wasn’t nearly enough.
“Come for me,” Josh said and that was all it took. I shattered around him, crying out his name as my orgasm took me clear out of my own body. I thought the first orgasm he’d given me was mind-blowing; I didn’t think anything could surpass that level of pleasure. But this…holy shit.
I spasmed around Josh’s still-pumping fingers, but he didn’t let me come back down to Earth. He continued those long, delicious strokes, rubbing that inside wall in a way that had my toes curling all over again. He was going to kill me, and it wasn’t going to be a dagger to the heart. It was going to be death by pleasure.
