Marsum’s voice was strong in his head. Strong and sad. Perhaps more than any other person alive, Marsum knew just how much Maks loved his mate. They’d shared a body and Marsum had been inside his head, had seen how deep that connection was. And now the only way to get back to her was to . . . be with another woman. He didn’t think he could do it. He couldn’t betray her that way, not even for his life, as foolish as that was. The Storm Queen was not going to have him if he had any say over it.
“Well, pet?” she purred. “What do you think now?”
The Storm Queen stood right in front of him, her toes right by his hands. He could have grabbed her by the ankles and thrown her against the wall. He could have shifted and made a run for it. But . . . if his timing was off, he’d be dead in seconds.
Could he placate her long enough to find a way out? She would know, though, unless he could give her a better act than Shakespeare had ever penned.
He pushed slowly to his hands and knees; head hung low as his breath came in deep pants. He could do this thing that horrified him—he could make her believe that she was the one he wanted, just long enough to get free.
The fluid flowed through him, and his mind grew fuzzy, as if he were drinking țuică. He blinked and lifted his hands to his face, wobbling where he stood.
Her hands touched his, the skin rough, callused. Like Zam’s. He stared at her hands, seeing the scars and marks that came from surviving. Marks he knew so well.
“You can’t be Zam. How?”
“Oh, but I am.” And damn it if it didn’t sound like his mate. The slight edge to her words, the bits of gravel that he’d always found so damn sexy.
He lifted his head slowly, starting at her feet and going up her legs. Legs that he knew, the same as the hands that held his. Startled, he fell backward as he stared into the green eyes that he loved. Green eyes that he would know anywhere.
“Hurry,” she whispered and held out a hand. “I can’t hold the Storm Queen back for long. She is too strong even for me.”
The potion sunk into him further and he lifted his hand, setting it in her fingers. Feeling the hands that he’d kissed, that had run over his body, now they clung to him and dragged him upward. Took him out of this place. Zam would save him as she’d done before.
He forgot everything but her. His mate. His heart. Forgot that there was a magic pulsing in his blood.
The liquid in his veins flowed thicker, pushing its way into every part of him, pulsing in his throat and tightening the muscles. His vision narrowed to the woman he loved and nothing more.
Not even Marsum spoke to him.
Zam pulled him along behind her, stopping at intersections of the palace, keeping him safe as guards strode by, pressing her body against his as she hid them both. Up and up, they went. To the top of the palace, to the rooftop where they could escape.
On the parapet of the roof, Lila was perched, waiting, her eyes tracking them as they ran across to her.
“Lila,” he mumbled, expecting her to call him Toad. To tell him to hurry his ass up. But she was silent. Waiting.
Zam continued to drag him along, and he tried to keep up, stumbling across the roof. Why was he so slow? His legs felt as though he wore shackles. But Zam didn’t argue. She didn’t berate him. She just pushed him up onto Lila’s back. “Hurry, we have to hurry. We can’t slow down, not for an instant. Trust me.”
He nodded and held a hand to her. She jumped up onto Lila’s back and in a single push of the dragon’s wings and legs, they were off.
Lila felt . . . strange. Softer than before. As if she were made of feathers and not tough, leathery skin. He pressed a hand against her body and the image fuzzed, showing him tawny, golden fluff for a split second before it slid back to dragon hide. “Lila, what’s wrong?”
Before the dragon could answer him, before he could question the fact that she was able to shift sizes once more, Zam twisted around to face him.
“Maks, kiss me,” she whispered, sliding her hands over his shoulders and down his chest before she offered her face up to him, lips slightly parted.
With a low growl he pulled her back tight against his chest, and kissed her hard, not caring that they were in the air, that Lila would tease them later. He didn’t care. This was his mate. And she’d rescued him from that bitch of a Storm Queen. And he wanted to touch and taste every inch of her body. His hands slid under her shirt, across smooth, scarless skin.
Scarless. That seemed . . .wrong.
The wind howled around them, the smell of the ocean crisp and clear as he kissed her deeper and deeper until she was moaning. Her hands tangled around his clothes, as if she would pull them off right there.
Lila landed and Zam pulled back, flushed and panting. “Goddess. You are a charm, aren’t you?”
He leaned to kiss her again, and a look of fear flashed across her face right before she all but pushed him off Lila’s back. “That’s a good boy. I can’t let you get too close.”
He grinned, tried to speak but his words were slurred. His mouth stumbling like his feet meant that no words came out. Why wouldn’t she want him close? He blinked and again the world fuzzed. For a moment they were back on the castle that they’d just left, and then it twisted and turned into a different building, one that was more like a house on the edge of the sea.
“Too close,” he mumbled. They were too close to the water. The water was where the Storm Queen was.
Zam laced her fingers with his and pulled him after her once more. Down flight after flight of stairs. Too many for a house this size. His mouth might have been struggling to speak, and his eyes were fuzzed with something, but his brain was starting to work once more. His mind and heart tried to free him from . . . whatever this was.
He counted the flights of stairs. The house had been one level.
They went down eight flights of stairs.
The sluggishness in his veins slid a little and the figure in front of him shimmered, going from the woman he loved, to the Storm Queen and back again. How?
Scarless. There were no scars and that wasn’t . . ..
“Zam?” He managed to get her name out.
“Come on, pet, almost there.” She purred. Purred. That seemed . . . not right. He knew that Zam could purr in her house cat form but never when she was on two legs.
She put her shoulder to a door and then backed through, drawing him with her. A bed dominated the room, a fire burned in a brazier in the corner, the smell of fresh bread, a simmering pot of meat and spices—curry maybe—it all pulled him forward.
“You can eat after, pet. I want you inside of me. Now. Make me yours.”
Zam stripped her clothes away in a flurry and then set to work on his, yanking them from him. He stood still and let her; eyes half closed, letting the sensations roll over him. Barely able to breathe through the uncertainty that was stealing whatever sense of rightness had been there even moments before.
“Slow,” he whispered and even that word was harder yet. His brain and body were trying to tell him something. This was wrong. So wrong. They needed to not hurry this for some reason he couldn’t put his fingers on.
“Oh, we can go as slow as you like, pet.” She went up on her toes, pressing her breasts against his bare chest. He should have been ecstatic. He’d never bedded Zam in a proper bed with cushions and a mattress. Yet his body was unmoved.
She nipped the side of his neck, kissed his earlobe and sucked it into her mouth as her hands dipped to lower regions, stroking and touching.
A groan slid from him as his head tipped back. It felt good. It felt wrong. He started to shake.
This was . . . not right.
And the only thing he could think was that maybe if he just went to sleep, he’d wake up and this would be a dream, a strange dream that felt all too real. He managed to get his hands up, and press them into her upper arms, holding her still.
Fighting the grogginess, the fuzzing of his eyes, he stared down into her green ones. “Slow, Zam,
go slow.”
She blew out a breath and rolled her eyes but followed him as he stumbled toward the bed. It was his turn to drag her down to the cushions and she fell on top of him, straddling his hips, working her way over him as he grew harder.
He kept his eyes closed. Breathed through the sensations. Tried to pinpoint what was so wrong about this moment. He put his hands on her hips and held her tight to keep her from moving.
“Pet, I want you to fuck me.” Her words were sharp, and he felt the sting of them, like a lash. He opened his eyes. Strike that. She had lashed him with a leather strap.
He rolled, pinning her arms with ease, and holding her tight. “Sleep. Sex later.”
“Oh, my goddess, no! We are not sleeping!” She fought against him, and he lifted an arm, setting her free. He wouldn’t make her stay. She’d come sleep beside him when she was tired. Lila would curl up between them and then bitch about smelling lusting hormones all night.
He smiled and his breathing slowed as his body sunk into—not a slumber, that would mean he was sleeping, and he could still hear what was going on around him. Some kind of fog was what he was in.
“Why did the potion not work?”
“Mistress, I do not know! It has been a proven potion on male Jinn for generations. There must be—”
“Something you did wrong! You’ve ruined this!” Zam screamed. Only . . . was it Zam? Her voice was off now.
“Mistress, this is not the first time I’ve created this potion. I assure you that there is nothing wrong with it.” The one who answered was sharp and unafraid of the screaming woman who maybe wasn’t Zam.
“Pissed,” Maks mumbled under his breath. The unafraid one was pissed.
“Then what is it?” Zam snapped. “Why isn’t he reacting the same way? Why isn’t he fucking the ever-living goddess out of me?”
A hand touched his back, though ‘hand’ was a loose description as the fingers felt more like skeletal talons. “Something about him is the issue . . .” The fingers dug in, and he groaned as the pain pushed the fog back. “Perhaps he is not quite what he seems?”
Shift. What if he shifted? Would that help him?
No. He swallowed the urge down. Shifting now would tip his hand and he was hanging onto that until he was sure he could escape. He had to wait for the moment . . . but why was he trying to escape Zam?
“Something . . .” The talon fingers dug deeper, drawing another low moan out of him and his skin rippled as he fought another wave of needing to shift. “Ah. You see that? He is not pure.”
“WHAT?” The screech filled the air, cutting through the last of the drink that she—the Storm Queen—had given him. His mind cleared rapidly, as though he’d been dunked in ice water, but he stayed where he was. “He’s not . . . pure? What the fuck does that mean?”
“That is what I said,” the scratchy voice answered. “Not pure. A mutt. A half-breed. Your child would also then not be pure.”
The screams reverberated through the room, and he made himself lie still. Waiting.
As they subsided, a sob rippled from her, the weight of her settling onto the bed and for a moment he felt sorry for her. The shaking of her crying sent ripples through even the thick mattress.
“I shall never have a child.” She drew a sucking breath, and the sorrow in her voice was thick, wet with tears. “I shall never hold my own child.”
He reached for her, his hand hovering at her lower back. Uncertain. Not that he would be the one to give her a child, but her pain drew him as her demands could not have.
Her back stiffened before his hand landed and she stood. She didn’t look back at him as she spoke.
“He is of no use to me. Kill him.”
Well fuck, so much for feeling sorry for her.
5
Zam
“Asag, the Beast from the East,” Vahab almost sung the words as we rode south. Toward the Sea of Storms and the Queen who had Maks. What a damn mess my life was. Not that it was any surprise to me or anyone who knew me.
My hands tightened on the reins and my jaw ticked. That bitch was going to get her ass handed to her on the end of my sword. Lilith whispered encouragement from my back. I will help with that. Gladly. I don’t like men stealers.
“What about him?” Lila asked. “Or do you just get a kick out of saying his name like that?”
She clung to the front of my saddle, glaring across at Fen and Vahab.
Vahab saluted her. “He is a demon, and he is lazy which will be his downfall one day. He likes Jinn women; they are his flavor, if you will. But he likes them young.” His eyes slid over me and then rested on Reyhan. “So, you two would be a draw regardless of the fact that you have released me and are now trapezing across the desert that he likely considers his own.”
I wasn’t sure I’d call it a desert now, at least not the sandy desert that I was used to. The ground was hard, cracked, completely baked from the heat of the sun. “The way to him is across the mountains,” Lila said. “And we are headed south which means he won’t be looking our way. We are fooling him.”
“Says the dragon who knows nothing about this side of the desert.” Fen snorted and shook his head, so his mane flipped every which way. “You are ignorant, little girl.”
Oh, those was fighting words if I ever heard them.
Lila surprised me, though; she didn’t speak to him, just shot up into the air, her body vibrating. “I’m going to scout ahead. I do smell all horse piss, at which my nose is in great indignation.”
“Good idea, Tempest.” I arched a brow, and she gave me a subtle nod. She was okay, just furious. As long as she wasn’t hurt by him. The fact that she threw out a Shakespeare quote was interesting.
He didn’t so much as blink at it.
I glanced over at Fen who trotted alongside us after she flew away. “You’re a dick, you know that, right.”
“Dick, dick, he’s a dick!” Reyhan sing-songed from Dancer’s back, making me smile.
Fen stared straight ahead. “She is young and a fool to think that no one has noticed your passing. You both are fools to think that because you have come this far, you will make it safely. And then to bring a child with you is beyond—”
“Enough.” Vahab put a hand to Fen’s neck and the dragon went silent. “You are half shifter, like the girl?”
I nodded. I wasn’t going to defend bringing Reyhan with us. I’d leave her behind the first chance I got if there was safety for her. And I certainly wasn’t about to tell Vahab that I was a granddaughter of the Emperor. Nope, that was a bad idea. So, I changed the subject from me, back to the issue at hand. “Tell me what you know of Asag.”
Vahab sighed. “Honestly, there is not much to tell. He was a powerful demon when he was called across to this land. That much has not changed by the sounds of it. He draws his power by eating the power and magic of others. If he has been here for many generations, then there will not be many left that have any magic, so to speak.”
Balder shook his head and gave a low snort. I thought about the unicorn herds. “Did he take the unicorns for the same reason as he takes the dragons?”
Vahab startled. “He took dragons?”
“The hatchlings.” I stared at the sky as Lila came hurtling back toward us. Too fast. She was coming in too fast for this to be anything but trouble.
“That’s a terrible idea, taking dragons of any sort. Unless they bond willingly to you, they are always on the cusp of being turned against their master.”
Fen gave a low grumble but I couldn’t look away from Lila as she all but dive bombed into my arms. The impact drove the wind out of me, and I struggled a moment to breathe as she started yelping.
“Big birds. The rhuk! They’ll see us in less than a minute at the speed they’re coming in!”
And we were out in the open with no chance for cover. Fen wouldn’t be able to keep up as a horse. There weren’t a lot of options, and I made my decision in a split second. I didn’t doubt that as a full-size
d dragon he might be okay, but that didn’t leave much for the rest of us.
“You need to get small right now!” I snapped a finger at Fen, and he just stared at me. “Vahab, get on Dancer. Reyhan, come to me.” I was already grabbing the girl and dragging her onto Balder’s back with me. Her tiny arms wrapped around my middle. We had to run, and we had to run now.
Vahab snorted. “Rhuk? They are no trouble. We need to eat tonight, they are quite lovely with a fresh cream sauce.”
I stared at him. “Eat? They’re as big as a goddess-favored dragon!”
His eyes widened. “Truly? Last I saw them they were no bigger than a fluff of chickens.”
“Give me a flouncing satyr any day over this one,” I whispered to myself. Vahab mounted up on Dancer who took a couple bouncing, bucking steps.
“Lovely, is she always so calm?” He bit out the words between being thrown about.
I ignored him, clutched Reyhan tight and gave Balder his head, knowing that Dancer would keep up with or without her new rider. Balder knew it too. He went from standing still to a flat-out gallop with a single leap. Behind me Vahab yelped, no doubt thrown back in his saddle from the force Dancer exerted in order to keep up with Balder.
“Which direction are they coming from?” I hollered into the wind.
“South. Straight up from the Sea of Storms I’d guess,” Lila yelled back as she clung to my shoulder. I leaned forward, keeping Reyhan pinned between me and the saddle.
“Are we in danger?” Reyhan asked, her eyes wide.
I didn’t have it in me to lie to her this time. “A little bit. But we’re going to try and outrun it. Just hang on.”
A niggling along my spine, and Lilith whispered.
We could kill them. Then the child would be safe. We could save her. You need only join me, and our strength would stop them.
Her words sunk into me, trembling along my nerve endings; my eyelids fluttered as my breath hitched on the adrenaline that came not from the speed of my horse, but with the thoughts of a battle. An epic fight. Blood flowing from the bodies of my enemies.
Kingdom of Storms (The Desert Cursed Series Book 8) Page 4
