The Time King (The Kings Book 13)

by Heather Killough-Walden

  He would take them over the mountain and into the valley of insanity together. When he stepped foot in the land of the well and truly lost, he was going to make sure she was right there beside him. She was all he knew, all he’d ever wanted. He was going to make her his in every possible way.

  There was no going back. The point of no return had been passed long ago, when he’d claimed her in that scrying bowl, when his emerald eyes had branded her more deeply – and more meaningfully – than any burning metal ever could.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  He was brutal and beautiful above her, the so-tall, green-eyed warden who was sculpted like granite and gentle like a jackhammer. She had fallen hard. She realized now, as he moved inside her and his fingers tortured her and the darkness of her world was filled at last with stars, that she’d fallen irrevocably and instantly when he’d stood over her on that desert road and offered her his hand.

  Now Helena was lost in a verdant sea, in an electric miasma of pleasure and pain that continuously played out across her nerve endings, zapping her mind utterly and completely senseless. They had only just met; that was what law and nature dictated. But he fit so hard and real inside her and he owned her so entirely, she was certain she’d known him forever. Little by little, second by second, he forced her to belong to him more completely.

  It hurt and it felt right.

  It made no sense, it was twisted up and meaningless and there was danger all around – somewhere – yet time didn’t matter here in the heat of his embrace, as the vessel of his need. She gave herself to him. Her Will Slate.

  My William.

  She closed her eyes, fighting and winning against the enigmatic pull of his glowing green gaze, and surrendered to the mounting maelstrom of pleasure swirling within her. She was trembling with it, shaking in uncontrollable bliss that was too much for her body to hold, and she was rising still. He took them both higher, expertly fierce and unrestrained in his pursuit.

  It was nearly impossible to do so, beyond difficult to concentrate under his assault, but she eased up her grip on the ridges of his sculpted form and lifted her hand to his head. Her fingers brushed through his thick, soft hair, and that was a bliss all its own. He smelled like night time and eternity, and she had no idea what that meant. Only that it was beyond wonderful. Beyond right. It was what she’d always wanted and she hadn’t even known it.

  Will was her happy ending.

  My happy ending, she thought distantly and insanely, and wondered why it even mattered. Every time he moved against her, filled her up again and stretched her to the point of madness, it felt right. So right.

  He knew her. He knew everything she would do, everything she would feel. He seemed intimately familiar with her inner-most workings and knew all too well how to manipulate them. They climbed together in sweaty, tangled workings until she knew she could no longer hold back the voice of her passion, and then there he was again, taking her lips in another kiss.

  He knew.

  He drank in her tiny, desperate cries one after another, and she in turn felt his animal growl, low and rumbling, as it escaped his throat and rode through her. Again. And again.

  His fingers touched her primally, pressing expertly around the nub of her clitoris to exact a sudden sharp pleasure that speared through her, so close to the peak of release she needed, her vision swam. She gasped, incapable of comprehending the sensation, and then he did it again.

  Proving the cruelty she knew she’d seen in him all along, Will suddenly slowed his pace above her to draw the torture out. His wonderful fingers slowed in their movements too, and she made a desperate, furious sound against his lips.

  The bastard laughed. It was deep and filled with animal lust, but it was a laugh nonetheless. He broke his perfect kiss and looked into her eyes, chuckling darkly as he touched her in that perfect, terrible way once more, forcing her body into a writhing, clenching mess. He must have liked what he saw reflected in her gaze, because his own eyes flashed with triumph and malice, so beautiful in his heartlessness.

  “Shhhh,” he commanded, the sound brushing across her swollen lips before he rose above her and the air of the room swirled against her fevered skin. Her nipples were tight and hard, her breasts swollen with the heaviness of passion, and he took advantage of this, pulling his thick, hard length completely out of her to slide himself down her already delirious body. She knew where he was going, what he intended to do, and she was vehement.

  “N-noooo,” she half-moaned, half-growled helplessly, her hand fisting tight in his hair. She wanted him back, she wanted him inside her, or she was going to lose her fucking mind! But he was on the warpath, and ignored her grasping desperation to settle his hot mouth over one of her nipples and suck hard.

  Again, his hand clamped down on her in perfect timing, covering her mouth as she screamed in horrible pleasure. His tongue swirled, his teeth teased, and his free hand returned to the core of her, again pressing just right.

  Her head tossed, and his hand followed the movement, silencing the cries that would otherwise probably bring the safe house’s inhabitants down around them. It went on forever, this uncompromising heaven-hell, as Will explored her and played her and she swam in a sea of painful euphoria. He moved from one nipple to the other, his teeth exacting, his tongue soothing, his behavior maddening.

  Finally, as the bliss around her began to even out and sound and color blended within her into something meaningless and manic and what sanity she had left feared she would never know an end to the punishment, Will once more rose above her.

  Somehow, Helena opened her eyes.

  What she saw there in that moment would become forever imprinted upon her soul. He was outlined in shifting green lights that filled the room and wrapped around them and matched the hypnotic glow of his eyes. His irises were on fire, emeralds set ablaze by inhuman need, stark and glorious in his angelic face. His hair was damp with sweat, dark and perfect, and every muscle in his tall, hard body was ripped taut with pent up, volatile hunger.

  He held her in those green, glowing chains as he pressed himself against the door of her slick tightness once more, and Helena’s breath caught between sudden fear and all-out need.

  Time stopped. It held still, drawing the moment out for its own sick pleasure.

  And then Will slid a thick, strong arm around her waist to hold her still, wrapped his deft fingers around her throat in absolute possession, and impaled her with all of his strength. He kissed her hard, drinking her in with concerted abandon as she cried out mindlessly against him and he sank into her for all he was worth. Something was erupting inside her, shaking and unsteady and out of her control. He dogged the madness on, not holding back now, claiming her roughly with each pull and thrust, sinking to the hilt each time.

  His fingers tightened slightly around her neck, just enough to be a threat, heightening the already impossible level of pleasure riding through Helena’s form. Forever, she thought. She wanted this to last forever. There was nothing more important than this.

  Infernal fires erupted around her, licking at her skin, blazing trails of destruction along her soul as Will went faster. Harder. Fierce and unrestrained and absolutely impossible, he rode them over a mountain higher than any human was ever meant to go.

  And then, in a flash of a moment that was shattered into a thousand tiny fragments and tossed to the winds of time, Helena broke at last. The enraged longing Will had built within her hit its precipice and sprouted dark, glorious wings. She climaxed with an orgasm that wiped her mind of everything but white-out bliss, her body convulsing, her scream taken by Will’s claiming kiss.

  He then broke the kiss at last, grasped the bed in his hands, and threw back his head, roaring into the green magic around them with something vast and tremendous that he could no longer hold back. Jade colored lightning zapped around him and then unraveled to wrap around Helena, holding her in its own arms as if she belonged to it. It slid along her breasts, passed between her legs, and e
xacted every last ounce of strength she had left to give in the ripples of inconceivable rapture that rocked through her over and over again.

  Forever.

  It went on and on and lasted forever… just as she had wanted it to.

  But forever, as it turned out, was not that long at all.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  He helped her get dressed, taking every opportunity to brush his fingers along her skin as he slid the shirt over her head and pulled it down her sides. She ducked her head, smiling shyly, and her cheeks flushed in a blush. After all he’d done to her, after all they’d learned of each other, she was still shy, and somehow that instantly sent blood once more rushing between his legs.

  He was hard again in seconds flat, and that wouldn’t do. They didn’t have the time.

  Make time, he told himself. Nothing mattered but this – nothing mattered but her.

  But they were already lucky that no one had come barging in when they’d made all the racket they’d made earlier. He had a feeling he knew why; he’d seen the reason floating around them as he’d taken Helena, a veritable cocoon of protective green magic and a buffer against the rest of the world. But it was foolish to think they could get away with it a second time.

  Will’s heart swelled as he became the fool anyway and turned fast on the bed, at once knocking Helena to her back beneath him. She gasped in surprise, her eyes widening, and her hands flew to his now-clothed chest. He caged her in, an arm firmly planted on either side of her against the bed.

  “If you want to keep your clothes on this time, you might have to put some distance between us,” he said with a dark smile.

  “Gladly,” came a familiar voice. The cocking of a gun followed on its heels, the click-click sound like a death knoll in the small room.

  Helena froze underneath him, her pupils growing tiny in fear as she looked from him to whatever was over his shoulder. A new wave of power washed over him, one in complete opposition from everything he’d felt so far. And yet it was terribly familiar.

  Will reacted like lightning, leaning over to grab the gun he’d stashed beneath his pillow. He then simultaneously rose off Helena and spun to face the bedroom door, but froze mid-motion when he saw what Helena had already seen.

  The intruder was standing right over the bed, and his cocked gun – the one Helena’s father had given her – was two inches from Will’s head.

  “You were right Will,” said Liam Slate, whose words shook but whose gun arm was steady and strong. “These tattoos don’t work against Cain at all.”

  For so many reasons, horror washed over Will as he stared down the barrel of that gun and consequence came slamming into him like a ton of bricks. But before he could decide what to do next, Helena was rising beside him, her arm reaching out, her fingers and palm glowing with fresh, fast magic.

  She shouted something ancient at the tops of her lungs. It sounded primordially beautiful; they were exotically curved words, like spoken calligraphy. And beyond all reason, Will understood what she was saying. They were the words of a traveling spell, created when words themselves were brand new and travel was used to cross the vast regions of yet empty space.

  The spell was created by the only one who could travel that vast region. The only one who existed to do so.

  William, the name echoed.

  The room around them flashed a bright, sparkling white, and Will reacted out of instinct, reaching out to take hold of Helena with his free hand. The bed beneath them lurched. Liam’s face twisted with rage, and the irises of his eyes went from green to bright, glowing blue. He lowered the gun to Will’s heart, aiming for what would stop him dead at once.

  He knows, Will thought.

  But then he was spinning on the bed, turning his back on his possessed cousin to wrap his arms firmly around the Promised One.

  “No!” The gun went off, but Will must have already been already gone; the bullet went through the space where he’d been a split second earlier. The heated fuel of Cain’s wrath followed Will like a bath of fire as he and Helena vanished.

  The magic of the spell bent the universe as it had been designed to do, and rather than manipulate time, for once Helena manipulated space. It folded before them like a piece of paper, then rather roughly shoved them from one side of the paper to the other.

  He knew the landing was going to be tough. This was untried magic for Helena, and it was eminently powerful. He held her tightly within the protection of his embrace, and prepared his body for the impact. As he did, he called out with his mind, like any trained warden would.

  Fort! He mentally bellowed, hoping the call could be heard through the twisted space of the wormhole Helena had opened up and sent them through. Liam needs help!

  They came out of the spell with the oddly painless sensation of being pulled like taffy, and then Will was grunting with real pain as the wind was knocked from his lungs and he and Helena rolled across a rocky, flat surface. He took the brunt of the impact, and all of the scrapes and bruising from pebbles as they skidded across the ground, and all he could think the entire time was a silent, repetitive prayer that Helena would be okay.

  When he came to a stop, Helena was still firmly in his arms, tucked safely against his chest. After a moment or two of discombobulated silence, she lifted her head. Will looked down to meet her gaze, and just caught the tail-end of a reddish glow as it faded from the depths of her eyes. She was shaking; he could feel the tremble of her body against his.

  “Holy… f-fuck,” she whispered shakily.

  For some reason Will found this to be an understatement. And that made him want to laugh. Instead he just smiled, shaking his head. “That was amazing.”

  But she didn’t smile back. Her brow furrowed. “Liam is back there, Will. Cain has him.”

  “I tried to let Fort know,” he said.

  Will slowly let her go, and the two of them sat up. The rocks they’d rolled across were not just rocks. Each one was faceted and crystalline, and a myriad of colors lay naturally strewn across the ground, which stretched into the landscape, clear to the curved horizon. Nothing else moved. There were no plants, no animals. Just these multi-hued gemstones of varying sizes as far as the eye could see.

  “We’re in Lapis,” said Helena.

  Lapis was a fae realm, or rather a realm belonging solely to the fae. It was deserted for the most part, but once in a while it was mined for its more rare and valuable stones. The entire realm was composed of gems, from sand-size to those large enough to build a house in.

  “You took us between realms,” said Will, his mind spinning. “I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t be,” said Helena dejectedly. She got to her feet, and Will hastily joined her, worried about what effects casting magic of that magnitude might have on her. “I have no idea how I did it, and the gods only know how the hell we’re going to get back.”

  She finished looking around, then turned to face him. “Are you okay? That gun went off, and it’s….” She broke off and ran a hand through her luxurious hair as her gaze slid to his chest. “It’s a powerful gun.”

  “I’m fine,” he told her. “He missed.”

  “That’s just it,” she said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t miss. Not ever.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “I don’t sense him.”

  Amunet opened her eyes, coming clear of her visionary search for any sign of her son. “I don’t feel our child, Ahriman. He is not in this world, and he should be.” She looked up from where she was seated cross-legged on the floor. “I can tell he’s in this universe, but… not here.”

  Ahriman stood across from her, just inside the circle Amunet had drawn on the hotel room floor. The Nomad that had been known as the Entity for years now appeared as a tall black-haired man with black eyes who reminded Amunet a lot of Roman D’Angelo. He even wore a suit, finely tailored, and not a raven hair was out of place.

  Amunet had been born into a form his polar opposite, fair haired and tiny, pet
ite with a heart shaped face and brown eyes. They’d been reborn together, coming back into this world at the same time. Amunet believed it was her son’s pull that had drawn them both here so quickly and efficiently.

  But now he was gone. That was what her spell was telling her.

  She looked away from her mate to the red outline of the circle. It was drawn with paint made of the most powerful ingredients. The blood of ten specific creatures mingled in that paint. She’d have thought the human child would be a difficult ingredient to obtain, but it turned out to be the xenobe goblin that was the hardest. They’d withdrawn into their Goblin Kingdom in the wake of losing their queen, and the kingdom’s defenses were strikingly difficult to breach.

  Fortunately, Ahriman was still the Entity, and until he took solid form at Amunet’s side, the Entity was still capable of inhabiting the bodies of living beings. Just as fortunately, despite Queen Chroi’s changes for the better in the Goblin Kingdom, there were still some xenobes who preferred to rebel than behave.

  Hence the powerful circle was drawn, and Amunet’s mind traveled the distances of all thirteen realms. And yet, there was no sign of her son in any of them.

  Fury boiled like a teapot coming to steam, the volume of her anger rising within her until she nearly couldn’t stand it.

  “Solan.”

  Amunet looked back up. Ahriman’s eyes were glowing a bright silver. It was the sharp edge of a killing blade drawn in the sun. It was a mirror, one to her own wrath.

  “This is the Time King’s doing,” said the handsome and terrible man.

  Amunet bared her white teeth. “Show me Cronos!” she screamed, stretching out her arms, her hands palms-up. The circle of blood burst into bright red flame; black smoke rose toward the ceiling in billowing clouds of death.