by Kait Nolan
Marley reached out, grasped one of his clenched hands. “Touch me,” she whispered.
His hand flexed once before he lifted her palm, pressing a kiss to the center. “You humble me,” he murmured. His words, the brush of his lips, made her knees go weak.
She arched into the scrape of his calloused fingers as he cupped her nape, flowing toward him on a sigh. The frantic beat in her blood slowed to something quieter, but no less powerful as he covered her mouth again. His kisses obliterated all thought, all worry, until there was only this. Only him.
The robe slid down, baring her shoulders for his mouth. She made to drop her arms, but he held them, trapped, as he kissed his way along the length of her collar bone, up the column of her throat before skimming the shell of her ear. Fire kindled low in her belly and she sighed his name, part encouragement, part plea.
He took her mouth again with another of those long, drugging kisses, and when she surfaced, the robe was gone. Running his hands down her arms, he laced his fingers with hers and stepped back. Nerves began to jump as he drank her in.
“Exquisite.”
Marley smiled a little. “Your turn.”
Her hands sought skin. She shoved up his t-shirt, impatient. “Off.”
He readily complied. It was her turn to look her fill, absorbing the strong, muscled breadth of his chest. She ached to stroke and kiss the runes etched into the skin, but didn’t want to send his mind back to the dark. Lips curved, she ran her hands down the sleek slope of his abs toward his belt. As she worked, he skimmed both hands up her sides, bringing them up to cup her breasts.
Her hands fumbled. “Ian.”
“I never promised to stand still,” he said against her throat, and she could feel the smile in his voice.
His thumbs brushed lightly over her nipples, and the belt buckle suddenly became a complex piece of engineering. He kissed her again, his tongue sliding past her lips to dance with hers in a rhythm echoed by the strokes on her breasts.
Marley gave up on the belt and twined her arms around his shoulders, glorying in the feel of his heated chest pressed to hers. Her head was spinning, dizzy with want. No, her whole body was spinning. Ian shifted her around so the bed was at her back before grabbing beneath her thighs and lifting. Her body slid up his, her aching center pressed against the straining arousal behind his fly. Then she hit the bed and the heat of him was gone.
Blinking away the haze of passion, she watched as he made quick work of the jeans. She had only a moment to appreciate the view of his warrior’s body, an impression of dusky skin, before he joined her on the bed. His mouth blazed a fevered trail up her torso, and down again, causing her abs to quake. He took his time on the return trip, skimming lips and fingers up the insides of her calves, her thighs. Her body tensed as he neared her core, but he continued his leisurely path upward. Marley reached for him, trying to pull him higher. But he refused to be moved, intent on lingering in the valley between her breasts. He dragged his tongue up one slope and drew one taut peak into his mouth.
She arched up, biting back a cry. He shifted to the other side, stroking a hand along her waist, her hip, the length of the leg she curled around his back. She couldn’t move, not really, pressed beneath the weight of him, and the limitation was both pleasure and torture as her hips strained to buck against him. Seeming to sense her impatience, he shifted, and a burst of triumph shot through her.
At last, at last.
But he didn’t move up her body, reaching between them instead to cup her heat with one hand. The breath clogged in her throat. Marley reached for his face, bowing up to take his mouth, just as he pressed one long finger inside her. She exploded off the bed.
Impatient, frantic, she hooked a leg around his hip and rolled, shoving him to his back. Surprise and amusement flickered over his face. “I like a woman who knows what she wants.”
“Just you,” she murmured, and shifted to take him inside her.
His big body arched up to meet her. She held motionless for long moments, her body accommodating to his, deliciously full. Their eyes met, clung. The air thickened, and she bent to brush her mouth to his. “Only you. Always.”
At the blast of heat, she pulled back and was dazzled. Light burst around them as a thousand candles sprang to life from nothing. Awed, delighted, she laced her fingers with his and began to move. Pleasure battered her senses as she chased the delicious tension, her body whipping them both to a frenzy. She had the satisfaction of watching the last vestiges of his control snap. His eyes flared silver and his body surged beneath hers, matching her beat for beat until they both flew over the edge.
~*~
Sated on every possible level, Ian was pretty positive he’d never been this relaxed. He stroked a hand down and back up the length of Marley’s spine. Her skin was so gloriously smooth, he couldn’t seem to stop touching it. She sprawled over him, her hair spread out across his chest, her face pressed into his throat. He thought she was asleep until she shifted a millimeter to kiss the pulse in his neck.
“You’re a snuggler,” he said. The idea of it made him grin foolishly.
“I’m not snuggling, I’m boneless,” she said. But she nuzzled closer as she spoke. “I’ll move in a century or so.”
“Don’t you dare.” He felt her smile.
“You sure? I can practically feel you vibrating with energy.”
It was true enough. He’d never been this well-fed. Strength and power coursed through him, enough to make him feel as if he could scale Everest twice over. “Well, I could go run a marathon or we could find other uses for that excess energy.” He trailed his hands over her ass and down the back of her thighs. “Pretty sure there were several inches I missed the first time. Like this incredibly sexy new tattoo.” He traced a finger along the length of the branch, thinking it suited her. Bold and feminine.
Marley folded her arms across his chest and peered down at him, a smirk flickering at the edges of her mouth. “Well, you’re nothing if not thorough.”
He schooled his face to perfect seriousness. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t work on developing your patience.”
One dark brow lifted. “Oh is that what you call it?” Fresh desire kindled around her.
Ian smiled, brushing the hair back from her face. “I never knew it could be like this.”
“What?”
“Love,” he said simply.
Marley’s delighted reaction burst around her, a symphony of color. And when she smiled, Ian felt the warmth of the sun as her energy, their energy, broke over him like a desert rain, unexpected and life-giving. She sat up, stretching her arms to the ceiling. “God, I feel amazing.”
She looked amazing, all flushed and rumpled from loving. His gaze skated down the length of her body, catching on the stitches along puckered pink scar to the left of her belly button. Reaching out, he traced it, feeling the wheal of tissue beneath his finger. Barely more than two inches long, and it had nearly killed her. Should have killed her, even with the spell.
Marley caught his wrist and frowned. “If you’re going to start in on that again, you’ll ruin my afterglow.”
Ian wisely swallowed the self-recriminations, focusing instead on observation. “You heal like me now. Probably,” he added. “I don’t want to put it to the test.”
“That’s a good thing, right? Puts me less at risk for…stuff.”
“It’s not a license to do anything foolish or dangerous. You can still be killed. But yes, it should make you slightly less…destructible.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “The thing is…you shouldn’t heal that fast. It’s not how the spell works.”
Marley frowned. “How was it supposed to work?”
“The original incantation isn’t one of balance. It would’ve essentially channeled my energy into you, giving your body enough energy to heal itself, but not at such an accelerated rate. Even with you being half Felis, it shouldn’t have been that fast, that complete. When you changed the words, you changed the nature of t
he spell. We’re connected on a deeper level.” He said it carefully, not sure of her reaction.
“You think that should bother me. It doesn’t.” Her touch on his cheek was feather-light. “I love who are, so the fact of being bound to you isn’t a problem for me.”
The simple faith behind her statement rocked him.
“You might change your mind,” he said unevenly. “Centuries is a long time to be bound, and I don’t know if the spell can be reversed.”
“I don’t want it reversed—what do you mean centuries?”
“If my interpretation of things is correct, you initiated a mating spell.”
She blinked at him. “A mating spell? What does that mean?”
“Your life force is bound to mine. What power I gain feeding from you will be fed back through the bond. That’s why you healed. Even while you were—God, you were dying in my arms.” Ian shuddered at the fresh lash of terror from the memory.
Marley curled her body around him. “I’m right here. All in one piece.”
When he was sure his voice wouldn’t waver, he continued. “Even then, I could feel you…pushing. Freely giving what you felt. It was so huge, so strong. And when the spell kicked in, all that charge went back to you.”
“It created a closed circuit system.”
Ian blinked. “I…yeah, I suppose that’s exactly what it is.”
“Don’t look so surprised. I was a double major in physics and chemistry. I’d have graduated in December.”
Yet another thing she’d been forced to give up. “I’m sorry.”
She waved off his apology. “Water. Bridge. The important part of all of this is that you can’t inadvertently hurt me if you burn out now.”
“If my theory is correct, I’m not sure I can burn out anymore.”
“You’re stronger when you feed from me. Why?”
“Wraiths are meant to be parasites. That’s not a description born merely of my own self-loathing. Our illusory abilities are intended to enhance the entire spectrum of negative emotions in humans, and we’re supposed to take. It’s what we’re taught. What’s known about our kind. But you give. You give so much of yourself and what you feel, and it’s staggering.”
“Wait, I know the answer to this. There was a song about it. The power of love.”
“You joke, but it seems like it’s a thing. A big enough thing that I’m able to use my powers on other Mirus.”
“A good thing, from my perspective, given it saved our asses in North Dakota. Let’s get back to the whole centuries thing.”
“Your life will be longer because of mine. Theoretically, without outside interference, we’ll split the difference of our life spans between us.”
“How long do wraiths tend to live?”
“Most have been historically killed off in battle, and as I am one of the first, no one actually knows. I was a man to start. Fully mortal with the typical lifespan of my time. But that mortality is influenced by the essence of the reaper and by the djinn blood used to bind it. Reapers have no physical body of their own, so they’re fully immortal, and djinn tend to last a few thousand years. How that particular combination will play out for me, I don’t really know.”
“How old are you?”
“Three hundred seventeen.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I put together the pieces having seen you in the eighteenth century, but I didn’t really do the math. You look maybe thirty-five.”
His lips curved. “I told you, Mirus age differently from humans. You will too now.”
“Dear God,” she murmured. “Ian, I’m twenty eight. Aren’t there…I don’t know…laws against this or something?”
He shot her a salacious grin. “I assure you, I absolutely do not see you as a child.” She popped his roaming hands, made him laugh. “Even by our world’s standards, you’re still an adult.”
“Thank God for that. You’re still totally a target for robbing the cradle jokes.”
The idea of being a target for any kind of joke was so at odds with the life he’d led, he didn’t know what to do with it. He found he liked the notion of living a life where people were free to make jokes. “I think I could get used to you teasing me.”
She smiled and brushed her lips quickly over his, before sliding off and snuggling in against his side. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“I expect you’ll have plenty of them. What?”
“If you heal so easily, what happened to your leg?” She stroked her foot up his calf to his knee.
Ian went rigid.
Marley froze. “Does that hurt? I’m sorry, I didn’t think—”
“No, it doesn’t hurt,” he said. “But if you keep that up, you’re not going to get your answer.”
A beat passed, then two, before she grinned and primly tucked her foot behind her own calf. “Sorry. Continue.”
Ian tried to drag some blood back to his head. “Well, as noted, I heal very quickly, which is a good thing when it comes to things like bullet wounds or sliced arteries. But quick doesn’t always mean right. If anything serious is wrong, particularly with something like multiple fractures, fast healing is actually a detriment.” He took a breath and let it out slow. “On my last mission for the Council, my squad was sent after an Underground cell that was holding a group of Council scientists hostage. They knew we were coming. Had the place all wired up. We knew it, but we were trying to get to the hostages. I was on the alpha sweep and I saw the bomber—just a kid, maybe fifteen, with the detonator in his hand. And I…couldn’t take the shot. Thought I could talk him down. I don’t know if I was getting anywhere or not. One of the other members of my squad showed up and startled him into detonating the bomb. I was buried in rubble for more than thirty-six hours while they dug out survivors.” There hadn’t been but two, one of whom had died en route to the hospital. The kid hadn’t made it. “By the time they got to me, my leg had healed all wrong. The doctors rebroke it, did what they could to make it more functional, but there was only so much they could do. They tell me I’m lucky to have regained this much mobility.”
Marley trailed her fingers over the assortment of scars that marked his chest. He supposed she would consider them badges of survival. “That’s what the Underground is?” she asked quietly. “Terrorists?”
Ian thought of what Harm had told him, that he wasn’t willing to lose anybody else as collateral damage to a world of intolerance. It wasn’t quite the party line he’d come to expect from the Underground. The cells he’d dealt with thought nothing of collateral damage. Their end game was to upset Council rule, and the more chaos the better. If that was Harm’s intention, he’d have harvested every shred of intel locked in Ian’s brain. That he hadn’t taken the opportunity to violate Ian’s mind said Harm was up to something else. But Ian wasn’t sure it mattered where Marley’s father fell with his politics. The Council viewed all dissidents the same and would respond accordingly.
“It’s what I’ve been trained to believe,” he said carefully. “The missions I ran certainly seemed to bear out that impression. But the reality is probably more complicated. Just like in the human world, it’s entirely possible a handful of extremists give the larger group a bad name.”
Her fingers stilled, wisps of wary citrine rising off her. “Are you saying that because you think its true or because you’re trying to be diplomatic about whatever my father is involved in?”
Oh, she was astute. Ian curled his hand around hers and brought it to his lips for a kiss. “I honestly don’t know. Some of both, I think. Did someone say something to you?”
“No. But who else would be flagrantly breaking Council laws to help us?” She propped herself up on an elbow and looked down at him. “I mean, come on, we’ve spent the last however many hours in some kind of literal underground compound of bunkers. Is this an Underground cell?”
“It is. But I think it may be more of a refugee camp than a group of political activists.”
“That’s better than
the alternative,” she said, settling back down. “I was afraid of what he’d be like. I mean, other than a total stranger. I don’t know what to say to him. How do you even start some kind of relationship under these circumstances? He held you prisoner, for God’s sake. He tortured you.”
“He didn’t torture me. He interrogated me. There’s a difference.”
“It hurt you. Period. I don’t see the difference.”
“Trust me. There’s a big one. He took only what information he needed to make certain I wasn’t a threat to you or to the rest of his people. He could’ve done a lot worse. He could’ve killed me on sight for hurting you. He didn’t.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Just trying to give you some perspective. I don’t know what kind of man he is, but he doesn’t behave without thought to the consequences for others. He learned that the hard way with your mother. With you.”
Marley shot up. “What do you know?”
Ian debated whether to tell her. It was Harm’s story, Harm’s truth. But he wasn’t sure the other man would share it. And he was damn sure Marley wouldn’t let him rest until she got it out of him. So Ian sketched out the bare bones of what he knew, watched the dawning horror on her face. “In the face of an impossible choice, he made the best one for you.”
“I…don’t even know what to say to that. Human trafficking. Jesus Christ. Nothing in all my wildest imaginings ever came close to that.”
Because he wanted to soothe her and himself, he skimmed his hand in long, languid strokes up and down the curve of her hip and the sleek, muscled length of her thigh. She arched into the touch, idly echoed the rhythm with her foot along his calf. He had to ask the question before she distracted him again. “Whatever he had to do before, he wants you to stay now.”
She was pleased by that. And anxious. “I don’t imagine he’d have gone to so much trouble to retrieve me if he didn’t. But I can’t make that call. There’s too much we don’t know. And it’s not just me. What do you want?”
Ian tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You.”
