by Stacy Reid
He ran the tip of a clawed finger down her cheek before lowering his hand. Her stomach did an alarming flip even as confusion bubbled inside her. Not that she wasn’t grateful the Darkan was not ripping out her insides and feasting on her blood. The fact he stared at her as if enthralled as if awed by her was nerve-wracking. Shilah wetted her lips, and his eyes followed the movement.
He reached for her once again, and she tracked that clawed finger, bracing for his attack. He cupped her cheeks, and her eyes widened. Shilah’s wits scattered in all directions. His touch was soft yet absolute in its possessiveness. Her head pounded, and her skin itched and felt too tight for her body. Energy leaped between them, fierce and passionate, dark, and mesmerizing. Shilah laughed, then sobered instantly sensing she was on the verge of hysteria. What was happening?
“Mine.”
The words were like a solid blow to the center of her chest, and her resolve to be brave. Shilah stared at him in acute shock. Had she truly just heard him in her mind? It could not be. Darkans were not telepaths, and the thread he used was unfamiliar...strange and far too intimate.
“You are under my skin, and I’ve no idea how you’ve gotten there. I want to do things to you…”
That dark rumble in her mind, along a pathway she’d never accessed before shocked her into absolute stillness. The words themselves made no sense. Her heart was beating loudly, a hard, steady rhythm. “Did…did you say something?”
“You are mine.”
A tremble worked its way through her body, and a fear burned through her.
“Do not fear me little one, my life, my crown, and everything I am is yours. To harm you is to destroy myself.”
“You have a crown?” she croaked unable to process anything else.
I see upon your head a crown of snakes and thorns. She slapped her hands together, flaring her power and slamming up her barriers, blocking all possible telepathic pathways.
“Why have you denied me?” His voice was dark, thick, his fingers tightening in her hair. “Open up your mind to me.”
“No!”
She glared at him, lifting her chin, anticipating his rage, preparing to fight to the death.
His finger slipped down her throat and trailed over the swell of her breast. “Your heart beats for me.” His voice didn’t just whisper in her ear, but poured over her skin, touching nerve endings.
“It jerks in fear.”
“Why?”
Was he serious? “You are...you are a Darkan.” He was feared and reviled by all Amagarians, surely, he knew of his kind’s fearsome reputation. “And from the evidence of your tattoo, you are fully bonded with a leviathan for a beast,” she pushed at his mind, testing to see if the telepathic pathway remained open.
His head canted left as he considered her. “I am Lachlan Ravenswood, Archduke of the eastern quadrant of the Darkage, and I am your mate, and you are mine.”
His words felt like a decree.
She was still fighting to breathe, to shake off the trembling and fear and uncertainty. “Are you going to kill me?” she asked, ignoring that mate nonsense, truly too afraid to assess why he seemed so possessive.
She squared her shoulders, determined to show courage and the will to fight. From what she had heard in the empire Darkans respected strength and cunning. And her beleaguered appearance certainly did not say that, but she had to try.
“Kill you?”
How surprised he sounded. As if he was not the most menacing thing she had ever encountered. “Yes, kill me.”
“No, I would not harm a hair on your beautiful head, but I am going to take you.”
“Take me where?” she asked, hoping he had a plan for escape from the dungeons that would include her. Then she would turn her thoughts to escaping Amagarie to her realm.
Immediately, raw, provocative, and shockingly carnal images blasted through her mind, as if she had not erected a shield. Heat flared through her as the image of her on her knees, her hips arched, sweat slicking her skin and wild cries coming from her mouth, his body blanketing hers from behind, and the thickest cock she’d ever seen thrusting in and out of her with savage grace, flowered in her mind.
He placed one palm against the bars above her head, effectively caging her in, his body language blatant, possessive, intimidating, yet appealing with its raw savagery. “There,” he rumbled, lust flavoring the chakra that leaked from him. “I want to take you there.”
Shilah laughed then slapped a hand over her mouth, glaring at him, desperate to ignore the deep ache the raw pictures had painted and the fear at the blatant possessiveness in his tone. “I am Princess Shilah Malie Symonrah, rightful ruler of Dxyriah, and my hand is promised in marriage to Crown Prince Novar. You will not be taking me anywhere that resembles that.”
A burst of violence blossomed over her, through her. The glow of his aura—black ringed with a deep red formed a halo around him, yet he was not the mindless monster she’d heard whispers of. He smelled feral, wild, dangerous. How did he have such control of the beast within?
“Another thinks to claim what is mine?”
His voice was a rumble of ruthless malice. She made a small sound of protest, of fear, but firming her lips and electing to not offer a rebuttal to his outrageous claim. I do not belong to you.
A soft laugh echoed through her thoughts, and she froze. Had he heard her?
His hand skimmed over her breast and circled her throat. She felt the surge of darkness, of danger, then his voice spoke in her mind. “You are mine.” Cold, and absolute.
Power shifted inside her body, the tight coil slowly began to unfurl, to spread and grow. Then she slammed it into him, pushing him away from her. He flew back and thundered into the walls of the cage, rattling them. Then in a blink of an eye, he was once again before her. How did he do it?
“If you had asked, perhaps I would consider your suit for you are a fearsome warrior,” she hissed, rebuilding her barriers. All ridiculous nonsense for never would she indulge the thought of courtship from a Darkan. She stabbed at his chest with a finger, amazed at the wall of hardness. “I do not belong to you simply because you said it. I belong to no man, and when I eventually do, it will be because I desire it. If you mean to...to kill me, get on with it.” Her voice trembled on that last bit and she scowled.
“Any man who touches you will die.”
Her chest became so tight she could barely breathe. His voice was an accusation she did not understand, a curse, a promise of dark retaliation.
“Your claim is outrageous. I do not accept.”
With speed she could not track, his hands lifted her to him, pressed his erection tightly against her feminine mound. “What—”
Then his mouth fastened on hers and took possession. He was not breaking or rending her bones…he was kissing her? His need assaulted her senses, his energy a live entity that broke through her telepathic shield. His lust was acute and intense and threatened to consume her. She pulled her lips from his, breathing raggedly. “Lachlan, I—”
He stole the air from her lungs by pressing his lips to hers. The warmth of his body drove away the shivering she hadn’t been able to stop since she’d shattered his barrier. Desperation drove her to open her psychic eye to read him and encounter a violent wave of molten lust and need for her. She absorbed the ferocity of the emotions, alarmed when she encountered the vermillion hue of desire and tenderness. She gasped, her distress allowing his tongue inside. These were not the seductive kisses she had received from him before; there was no gentle nibbling, teasing foray, sweet passion. The need of the man and beast were one, and they battered at her mind, replacing her fear with a torturous heat. He stole her breath, her reason, her fear, and replaced it all with a burning, all-consuming desire. He held her like that for a long while, kissing her, letting her feast on the petrifying sensations he was evoking.
Shilah moaned as he slanted his mouth over hers roughly. Darts of fire raced through her bloodstream with the hottest arousal, frigh
tening because she had no business feeling such need for the Darkan holding her as if he would never let go.
She flinched and tried to draw back as sharp teeth sliced at her lips. The metallic taste of her blood filled her mouth. The snarl from his throat had her stilling as fear warred with lust inside of her. He swirled inside of her mouth, licking up the blood and sucking at her lips. The sting immediately stopped, and her mouth tingled. He had her pinned to the cage, and his erection felt hard and heavy against her stomach. His enormous strength was intimidating.
He found her throat, soft and vulnerable. Then a sharp pain lanced through her as he pierced her flesh with his fangs. Shock and arousal tore through her body in a whip of flames. His throat pulled, and the snarl of satisfaction washed through her. The pleasure so intense that she could feel her body gathering, chasing the violent storm stirring inside.
Hunger swept through Lachlan, a gnawing, clawing need that he feared would never be assuaged. His throat worked, and the princess’s life force rushed into his mouth. An exquisite, rare taste beyond anything he’d ever known burst through his fucking soul, trickling down his throat to seep into his veins, pouring through his body like the elixir of life.
Find the Princess of Boreas’s Queen's guards, the witch, and take them with his mate from the dungeons. That should be his focus but need battered at him with such force. It felt as if the beast in him was trying to claw through his stomach. The princess stirred such depths of feelings after such a barren existence, it terrified him, broke him apart, and then melded him with the darkness. A terrible craving that tore through him, relentless, insatiable, he knew at this moment this yearning would never end as long as she existed. Sane thoughts caught at the sharp edges of his mind but couldn't carve its way through the dark mire of need and lust and pulse-pounding desire.
She was his…and he would take her. She tasted like nothing he had ever had, and he never wanted to stop consuming her blood. Fire, hunger, need, obsession. All those and more she made him feel.
Her taste was rich, dark, and evocative. He drank her blood, let the liquid slide down his throat, savoring the taste of it, and fed provocative images to her mind of what he wanted to do with her, of what he would do. She whimpered, and a growl rumbled from him as lust and fear wafted from her to him. The stench of fear from the woman he would give his life for was repulsive.
“Do not fear me.”
He pushed it along the mental pathway he could feel forming between them, their lei—the mental path unique to all mated Darkans. He could see the link in his mind and felt it anchoring their souls together, darkness and purity, a joining that should be impossible. Along the thread connecting their souls, bright, vivid lights of blue, gold, and silver danced over her thread, and hovering around it was a thread of oppressive darkness. It tried to seduce the light, but it fled from the malevolence. And he saw it as an omen for how their mating would be. She was not of his kind and would run from his mating until he would have no choice but to bend her to his ruthless will.
“I cannot help but fear you.”
Her response was a soft whisper along their link.
“You threatened to harm a man who was promised to me before you met me.”
He retracted his fangs and released her throat, allowing her blood to trickle along her neck. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, her eyes enormous in her delicate face. She was everything he was not. Soft. Pure. Beautiful. And he sensed she wanted some reassurance from him, one that would lessen her dread, and it was beyond him to offer it. He would never lie to her.
“I made no such threat. I promised to slaughter anyone who would dare.”
Her eyes widened until they were enormous bottomless pools, stark horror staring at him.
He lowered his head and licked her skin, closing the wounds on her throat, before reclaiming her mouth. He brushed his lips gently, almost reverently over hers, hoping to communicate that she would always be safe with him. Then he deepened the kiss, and with a muffled moan she arched into him, kissing him back with a beguiling clash of innocence and carnality. She was like a living flame, burning him with her sweet wildness. His body clenched into a painful, hard, unrelenting ache. He smelled her arousal, hot and spicy, and wanted to sink to his knees and devour the wetness he knew he would find.
He showed her what he wanted to do, and she trembled in the cage of his arms, the hard points of her nipples stabbing into his chest.
And yet…her fear never abated.
“Do not fear me, even in eternity I shall belong to you.”
Confusion now flavored her chakra, and he had no notion how to explain what she was to him and what she would forever be.
“I…I do not understand. We do not know each other. What are you saying?”
Instead of wasting time with words she would never understand, he spoke with his tongue, his hands as he used one of his hands to palm her breast and rolled her nipple between his fingers. Arousal rode her hard, and her thoughts spilled to him along their tentative link.
She wanted him to touch her, to explore every inch of her skin with his mouth, to lick along her wet pussy, and then slowly feed his cock into her. The gentleness she envisioned, craved as he pleasured her felt strange to him. He wanted to dominate, to slake the lust rising between them with raw strength and passion.
He released her swollen lips and bent his head to place a kiss against the soft, vulnerable line of her throat. Shilah’s skin was warm satin beneath his stroking fingers. Her pulse fluttered too fast, and he heard the rush of blood, smelled its sweetness, and succumbed to his lure. His fangs once again burst forth, beyond his control, and he sliced them deep into her throat, bemused by the need to give her all the tenderness she imagined.
The need to lay the world at her feet was a gut-wrenching necessity, and Lachlan feared he would never be able to give her the snatches of the kind of lover and life he felt along their thread. Savagery and darkness were bred into his very soul, and he had found the only sliver of light that could possibly keep him from being eternally damned. And as sure as the kingmaker would bring war to his realm, he would lose his mate before he would get the chance to claim her, for he did not understand love, or kindness, or mercy.
He was a monster, the darkest kind.
8
“Please stop,” Shilah whispered, almost collapsing when Lachlan complied immediately.
His tongue rasped against her neck. She trembled, wanting to wrench herself from his hand, yet she burned for him. She hated the awful duality of need and terror twisting through her veins. Lachlan’s head lifted, and he peered down at her. His mouth was set in a cruel, unrelenting line, his lips were ruby red with her blood, and his expression was one of violent pleasure and primal satisfaction.
“You bit me,” she said faintly, touching her neck, surprised at the smooth, unbroken skin. “You…you drank my blood. Darkans do not consume blood.” That much she knew about the dark ones.
She met his eyes, and Shilah flinched from the feral lust and cold cruelty.
“Do not fear me.”
She wondered if she had unwittingly trapped herself in an illusion. This was the second time he was issuing such an absurd command as if she would just obey it. “I…I need...” she pushed trembling fingers through her hair, desperate for some time to think.
“Whatever you need I shall provide.”
Shilah stared at him. Every touch of his mind to hers making the connection stronger, more impossible to deny or even resist. “How do you always find a way through my shields?”
“I can feel you, in me, a part of me.”
“You can?”
“The scent of your arousal, the feel of your skin, the sound of your voice feels as if it is imprinting on every cell within my body. I can see a clear bright thread of light in my mind, and it is the only light in my dark abyss, and it leads to you.”
She hated that something in her heart and soul recognized his words. Shilah closed her eyes. She could hardl
y reconcile with the tender somewhat poetic proclamations of this fearsome creature before her. A beast which so far had killed everything in its path but was now ravishing and touching her passionately, claiming her as his. I’m merely hungry and exhausted. “I am not sure what is happening,” she said aloud, refusing to speak along their unique pathway.
“You are my mate.”
And what did that mean? She hadn’t read the Lexicon the emperor had provided, and the rumors in the empire on Darkans only spoke of their might and unchecked brutality. No one spoke of mates. Did he simply want to mate with her as in bed her? Or was it more? “What do you mean whatever I need you shall provide? Anything?”
“Yes.” Immediate and implacable.
“So, you will not kill me?”
“I cannot harm you.”
Relief crashed into her. She did not remind him of his earlier resolve to end her life. His promise wrapped around her, soothing the fear in a manner she had never imagined. “You truly cannot harm me?”
“All the enemy needs to break me is to hurt you.”
Her lips parted, and she stared helplessly at him. Nothing inside her could imagine the fearsome man before her broken or humbled in any way. But if she was hurt…suddenly, the weight of her importance to him settled on her shoulder. She opened her psychic mind to his, gasping when she saw that silver thread with white diamond lights with a tinge of black surrounding it. It led from her to him. She reached out her fingers touching the air, tracing the connection only those with immense psychic powers could even discern. And somehow, she understood that this thread that led from her to him was the only reason he wasn’t a ravaging beast. And what if this thread were to snap? What if her light should be snuffed away?
“My retribution would burn Amagarie.”
Her soul trembled at the brutal, and unshakable promise. “You’ve just met me!”
“It does not signify.”
“I cannot mean so much to you in so little time.”
