“I do not find any humor in this,” he said darkly. “You have tainted me with your blood!”
“I have healed you with it,” she countered sharply, her hands curling into offended fists. “You and your narrow ideas! Thank the Goddess Noah had the sense to send Gideon to teach me your ways, warrior, because if he had sent you I would have had you executed by the second morning! My blood is no more or less tainted than yours is, Demon. Though I’m sure I can produce just as many pigheaded, prejudiced people from my own species that would say yours is utterly diseased. I had hoped you were slightly smarter than those superstitious simpletons.” She seemed to be laughing at him even in her resignation over his character. “Are you poisoned? Rotting away? Are parts of you that weren’t furred before suddenly becoming so?” Again, that twisting of her lips, reminding him that she had taken quite a detailed accounting of his entire body during his unconscious state. “Trust me, Demon, you are no more or less an animal than you were when this began.”
With that veiled insult, she marched out of the room with her broom. He heard her swearing softly in a Russian dialect as she went, being dubiously polite enough to make sure she added some from his own ancient language so he would be quite certain to understand her meaning. It made his ears burn with renewed embarrassment at himself. Hadn’t he just told himself to quit being an ungrateful ass? Yet, somehow he had managed to do the exact same thing all over again. And this time she had not let it slide, her careful patience suddenly finding an end.
And why the hell did that bother him so much?
CHAPTER 3
Night turned to day again and Elijah’s grumbling nurse disappeared, no doubt to get some sleep. Meanwhile, he had been doing little else but sleeping. Now, set so far back from even the slightest touch of sunlight, he found himself fairly wide-awake. He was feeling stronger with every passing hour and every bowl of the aromatic soup she pushed on him. She had even begun to feed him the thicker rabbit stew.
He was amazed to realize the Queen was no slouch at the fire. One would think such skills were below a member of royalty, but apparently not. It reminded him of Noah. The King stood on very little ceremony and was quite willing to serve his guests himself.
Elijah pushed the comparison aside stubbornly. He didn’t want to find any more similarities between her and anyone else he respected. He was having enough trouble as it was from everything else he had been mulling over.
It had been much easier just to blindly hate and distrust all of her kind.
Still, at one point when she had returned to fetch his empty bowl, Elijah had reached out to take hold of her arm. She had turned a dark stare on him, lifting a filigreed brow in mock curiosity. Wordlessly, he had reached for the short hem of the black silk minidress she now wore, sliding the loose fabric up slightly to examine her damaged legs. As she had assured him, she had healed as remarkably fast as he did. The skin had become a soft pink color, the color of newly emerged, healthy flesh.
Satisfied, he’d let go of her. When he looked up at her again, she had seemed perplexed, the sardonic lift of her brow gone. But she did not say a word as she turned to enter the other room.
Elijah had his fill of lying in bed several hours later. He had no company because she was keeping her distance, and he was thoroughly bored. By all accounts he should have been sleeping soundly during sunlight hours, but he’d had enough of sleeping as well. The warrior found a towel under the stack of sheets nearby and wrapped it around his hips since he was unable to find his clothing. He walked out of the room on bare feet, out of habit making as little sound as she did.
He found himself in the middle of a Spartan but tasteful parlor. It had everything it needed, nothing more, nothing less, and everything was very well suited to the environment. He noted the comfortable couch nearby that had a distinct impression in it. No doubt this was where she had been sleeping, but she was not there at the moment. He had always thought Lycanthropes as severely affected by daylight hours as any other Nightwalker, so it surprised him she was not dead asleep. Then again, he was not exactly acting par for the course of his species either.
A breeze blew gently into the room and his head immediately picked up so he could take it in with a deep breath.
All Demons had an innate connection to the base element their powerful abilities came from. He was of the Wind, all of Her properties, temperatures, and volatile ways his to command and enjoy. The Wind filled him down to every last cell of his being, called to him with a lure that was almost unparalleled. And with the crisp, clean scent of Her whisper blowing around him, Elijah realized he had been indoors for far too long.
With a single-minded thinking, Elijah followed the breeze to its source. He strode up the cavern steps, then up the slope of the floor with eager expectation. He was so focused on his goal that it took him a full minute to realize he was approaching a lake of water within the cave, and that standing in the center of it, covered only to her hips with the liquid, was his wayward Lycanthrope nurse.
Elijah stopped dead in his tracks, his entire body tensing from head to toe with a mixture of utter shock and that sharp, brutal sexual awareness she inspired so effortlessly within him. The Queen had her back to him, the long, beautiful line of her spine gracefully exposed as she bent forward to swing her hair through the water she was using to wash it. The water lapped flirtatiously at the site of her tailbone, drawing his immediately riveted attention to that beckoning female curve of sleek waist blending into voluptuous backside. Her skin glittered with water, both real and reflected, hundreds of beads of the liquid sliding down to rejoin the surface of the lake. With her hair swept forward for washing, her long, arching spine was exposed, a palette of perfect, golden skin. She was shaped like a sculpture depicting the epitome of womanhood, strong, curved, and lush with the impression of fertility.
Elijah completely forgot about where he had been headed, his fingers curling into fists in reflection of the inexplicable desire instantly coiling throughout his body. He should have looked away, turned away, run away. He should have done any one of a thousand things except stand there gawking at her like some pubescent boy who had never seen a naked woman before. Though the initial breeze he had been following had picked up, he felt as if there wasn’t an ounce of oxygen in the room. He could not explain or control the effect she had on him. All he could do was struggle to breathe, and continue to watch every alluring movement the siren in the water made as her flawless body sang its riveting, seductive song.
Even the wind betrayed him, he realized a heartbeat later. It skimmed over her wet body, full of October cold, and he saw it ripple over her unblemished skin in an ever-expanding carpet of goose bumps. It worked down from her shoulders, along that length of feminine spine, until it was sprawling over her bottom and meeting the waterline.
Siena turned slightly, throwing back her heavy head of hair, releasing an arc of sparkling water from it all the way up into the air where it almost touched the stalactites reaching down from the cavern ceiling above her. She turned a little farther, her hand trailing in a playful pattern over the surface of the water, her breasts swaying gently with the motion of her reaching arm. Elijah’s smallest remaining breath escaped him as his darkened eyes burned over her bare form. Siena’s muscular fitness might have made some females look too masculine, but the smoothness of the curve from hip into waist, from waist back out to rib cage, and continuing on up into full, perfectly lush breasts, spoke of a creature who was made to be the most pristine of feminine lures to any male with a pair of eyes in his head.
Elijah’s gaze became riveted to the dark definition of her nipples, a blended rose and tan color that was boldly offset by the golden color of her skin. They were crested into an attractive thrust from the chilled temperature of the water and air, the effect eddying out into gooseflesh that crept over both breasts. Outside of those little puckered pores, her skin was immaculate and looking every inch as satin soft as he knew it was. She was unbelievably perfect, so we
ll formed, and so beautiful she had the power to literally stop his heart. His chest hurt with the sensation, but not as much as the sudden, blinding urge to go to her did. He could smell her, feel her as every hair on his body became erect, making him feel as though his very skin was reaching toward her. Every sense and natural device for sensing demanded more input.
In the water, the Lycanthrope Queen went still very suddenly. Her head cocked to one side in awareness, her nose twitching as she scented the air in order to identify what exactly it was that she had already begun to intuit on other levels as being amiss. Siena had just identified the familiar scent of masculine musk when she heard the abrupt sound of water splashing behind her.
She whirled around just in time to spin into the warrior’s arms.
Siena gasped as Elijah hauled her up against his body with one powerful arm, seizing her by her hair with his opposite hand. His mouth was on hers in an instant, giving her no time to even anticipate or react. Having lived a life of protected privilege and marked reserve when it came to any kind of physical contact, Siena had never been seized in such a manner. No one with an ounce of sense would have dared to do such a thing. She would have thought her initial reaction to such an action would be something in the nature of a definitive, violent slapdown.
Instead, it was great shock that caused her to inadvertently accept his kiss. The warrior was demanding, just shy of being brutal, and reflecting to her every feeling he had been inundated with during his unnoticed moments of observing her. Siena came to life an instant later, finally trying to push away, her hands going to the enormous wall of his chest. But she felt the bulk of the bandage that yet remained over the most serious of his wounds and instinctively resisted any pressure that would potentially reopen the healing flesh. Even to save herself, for some reason, Siena could not bear the thought of causing him harm. She was not that noble a creature in general, and certainly not when she was feeling threatened, so the impulse to protect him left her baffled and disoriented.
By the time she had finished curbing her escape impulse and contending with her feelings of confusion, she was being swamped by a thousand other sensations and emotions.
All of them were centered around heat.
So much amazing, delicious heat. Heat from his body burning its strength and form into hers as if she were a soft putty meant to take the impression of his fit into the memory of her own shape. They were like a puzzle. Two pieces cut apart but always meant to be perfectly reunited at some future point. They locked together like the flow of nature, thigh to thigh, belly to belly, and breast to breast. Even the water running down her steaming skin could not come between that perfect seal. There was heat from her body burning into his, blazing in places she had never felt such intensity before. The sensation was so baffling as it ran along her entire body, even the incongruous places like the small of her back, under her arms, and the soles of her feet, that it was just shy of being ticklish.
She could not laugh at it, though. She was far too engaged by his kiss to even consider it. His mouth was like a demanding and wet fire, his velvet tongue thrusting past her teeth to demand reciprocation from hers, leaving more licking flames in his wake as he went. Had she ever thought his lips to be almost feminine? He was nothing but male, the fit of his lips skilled and aggressive and very, very masculine in their flavor and force. He was drinking from her mouth in long, satisfying drafts, until Siena could hardly catch her breath. She felt her body bowing backward. She was being held so tightly that her body was forced to fit into the aggressive lean of his embrace. Her hair skimmed through the water, the ends recoiling in shock at the contrast of the cold in the face of all that heat. The very same cold she had been enjoying only seconds ago.
Elijah did not know what was propelling him to do what he was doing, and for that blissful moment he didn’t much care. Her sweet mouth, her feminine body, her increasing warmth—all suited him with inexplicable precision. She was passive with her shock at first, but it faded rapidly as her senses and sensuality were held in rapt attention by his actions. It was only a matter of a minute before her long, deft fingers were weaving deeply into his hair, sending chills of erotic awareness down his spine as she held him to her mouth and commenced an aggressive seeking of her own.
Siena’s tongue slipped over his, slinking across his taste buds and into his mouth with astounding womanly demand. She was just as curious, just as dominant in her nature as he was. The warrior groaned as her sweet, erotic flavor filled his senses, her bold, sweeping tongue forcing every nerve in his body into a clutching clarity of sensation. She tasted like cinnamon and honey, spice and sweetness. It was a confection of flavor and feeling he could not remember ever knowing before, or imagine ever feeling again. She made a small sound, then an aggressive one that sounded like a growl as it radiated past his lips. What that simple sound did to his body was purely indescribable. Like molten iron it burned through him, scorching him, an agony, a heat of pain and pleasure that hardened every muscle, every plane of his body.
Elijah’s hands were suddenly surrounding her face, cupping it between his palms as he pulled her away from his mouth. It took an entire minute to accomplish the separation, the delight of her mouth impossible to part from as much, it seemed, as it was for her to part from his. Their mouths glistened with the passionate exchange of flavor, each now residing on the other’s sense of taste for what seemed to be all time. When he finally could look at her face, the sound of her rapid breath and the sight of her flushed skin were damning. But they were nothing compared to the liquid, golden desire in her dilated eyes. Had she not looked at him as she was doing in that moment, he might have convinced himself that he was prepared to back off from her. It was a self-deception no matter which way it was viewed, however, because his entire body was gripped by opposing desires, none of which intended on going in any direction other than toward her.
They remained separated for all of a few heartbeats, and then he dragged her back to his mouth and into the dominant planes of his hard body, seemingly just as she lunged back into him to imprison him with her own needs. She made one of those primitive sounds that made his blood boil in his veins, urging his hands to her supple back in order to seal her to himself as tightly as the lick of a tongue sealed an envelope.
Elijah felt her on so many levels. Her body, so lush and aroused, locked tightly against his so that he felt every curve, every beat of her heart, and every swell of her breasts as she drew for air. Her eyes were wide open, bold and brave and mesmerizing as they locked with his. He had never realized how arousing, how enthralling such a simple thing could be. She was the purest art of courage, clearly blanketed with awe and delight as she absorbed his taste, his scent, and the press of his urgent, hardened body. Her fingertips slid with silky elegance down the length of his back, all the way from his shoulders to the edge of the towel slung low around his hips. The return trip up his spine bludgeoned him with sensation and a shaft of heat that clutched brutally down his belly and into his groin.
Elijah jerked his mouth from hers, gasping as hard as she was for that broken moment, but then she was being dragged up high against his body by his hands, her knee hooking over his hip in sensual aggression, her bruised and beautiful mouth already opening for him as he understood she was not in any frame of mind to tolerate his doubts, if indeed he had any, any longer.
It was beyond the fact that she tasted so fine, so sweet. It was how she boldly stroked and played with him. It was the way her essence seemed to become branded upon him. It was also the clarity with which he came to understand that it was exactly the same for her. Somehow, he was as perfect for Siena as she was perfect for him. In all those ways, and so many, many more.
Elijah ravaged her full mouth like a man starved for breath after nearly drowning. He took everything about her kiss deeply into himself, feeling it scorch through his body like wildfire.
It was utter insanity.
Siena should have been the last woman on earth he wo
uld have touched. She should have throttled the bloody hell out of him like he was very aware she could. Instead, she had burst into willing flame, her heat licking over and through him until he thought he would become only ashes in her hands. Ashes she could blow away with the softest puff of cinnamon-sweet breath. Elijah learned how to feel an entirely new level of arousal. He was hard and heavy with it, the sensation a raging demand that would brook no denials, no refusals. He felt the message urgently. There was only one way to be satisfied, only one woman who could accomplish it, only one refuge that would be home to the throbbing hunger clawing through him. Elijah knew she was aware of his state of appetite. She moved like liquid need herself, her body rubbing against his with blatant suggestion. She reminded him of her nudity, of her heated nearness, of how easy she was making it for him to simply shed any remaining barriers between them and find his heaven deep, oh so deep inside her.
Elijah could feel her hair coiling around his wrist and forearm, the erotic, living strands caressing him like thousands of tiny hands. Her actual hands were sprawling over the expanse of his chest, his shoulders…down his back and over the muscles of his backside. The touch made him shudder against her and he felt her sound of satisfaction vibrating into his mouth. She slid those seeking fingers down to his thighs, then reversed course back over his buttocks, this time beneath the heavy weight of the saturated towel slug so carelessly around his hips.
This time he was the one uttering a primal growl, accompanying it with an abrupt burst of movement. The warrior broke his kiss and hauled her up out of the water with one arm around her waist. He heard her release a short, delighted laugh that was pure sexual invitation. She wrapped her hands around the back of his head as his actions brought her breasts to the level of his mouth.
“Yes,” she said, the word a hiss of demand and urgency.
He smiled wickedly with his own dominant satisfaction before touching his tongue to one rigid nipple. She threw her head back, sounding out with more encouragement, almost begging him between her needful sounds and twisting body. At last, Elijah drew the crested peak of her nipple into the warmth of his mouth. Fire burned over his tongue, against her skin, flashing into both their bodies with a rage of demands. Siena arched wildly in response as he laved and suckled her, her cries echoing through the cavern in a way that fiercely contented the male animal within him. He was Demon. He was elemental to the earth within which they now sheltered. He was the very breath of life, every gasp of passion, every moan of pleasure. Wind. Breath. Tempest. All of it. And he made her feel it, the thoughts pushing out of him with an almost violent intent, like the fury of nature’s storm.
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