The Warlord

by Gena Showalter

  She stirred a little more, wiggling against him. Breath snagged as he waited...a stroke of her tongue.

  “Yes, love. Yes.”

  Fitting her lips against his skin, she fed at last.

  35

  Roc peered down at the goddess stretched out beside him. And she was a goddess. The granddaughter of Chaos. The daughter of Erebus. The only female in existence who possessed the strength and cunning to challenge the Commander of the Astra and win, claiming him as her very own.

  She had fed, her skin glowing with power once more. Stretching her arms overhead, with eyelids flittering open, she graced him with a soft, intimate smile—until she noticed the other harpies occupying the bed.

  “How long have you been boning the enemy, General Hussy?” the one named Kaia asked.

  Her eyes flared, and she muttered, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Well, why not go with it? Neeka! You owe me answers.”

  “Deal with your friend in a minute.” Blythe returned her hate-filled gaze to Roc. “I’m going to ruin your man, Roux. He killed my consort, and I’ll not stop until he pays.”

  Was stubbornness woven into the Skyhawk DNA? “I’m sorry for your loss, but I will not let my warlord be punished for defending himself during battle.”

  —Commander?—Halo didn’t wait for permission to continue. —The phantoms have awoken, and they’re speaking. Intelligently! They demand a meeting with Taliyah.—

  Roc marveled. Her light had healed the phantoms Erebus made? —The phantoms will have to wait. She’s recovering.—

  —They don’t strike me as the patient types.—

  —Handle them anyway.—

  Taliyah sat up and threw a pillow at her sisters. “You guys suck. Get out so I can speak with my consort. When I’m done, I want to have that chat with Neeka. Then I’ll deal with the rest of you and explain everything that’s happened.”

  Boos erupted.

  “Guys,” Gwen said, dead serious. “You’d better do what General Horny orders or else she’ll give you a stern talking-to.”

  Or not dead serious.

  Snickers abounded, the harpies remaining in the bed.

  —Commander?—This request came from Silver, and he didn’t bother waiting for permission to continue, either. —A group of males known as the Lords of the Underworld and some Hell kings are at the wall, insisting on an audience with you. At least, that is my assumption since they’re attempting to tear down our wall piece by piece.—

  —Is Hades among them? No, don’t answer that.—Roc would deal with him soon enough. —Tell the Lords and the kings I’m sending their wives back to them.—As soon as possible.

  “Get out, and go visit my phantoms,” Taliyah insisted. “They could use some friendly faces. I can feel them now. They’re going to be all right. I healed them, and I think I might have even...branded them.” She rubbed the scar on her nape. “I’m not really sure how. I didn’t use an iron.”

  “You did brand them. Mystically,” Neeka explained with a wide grin. “The symbol I burned into your nape is your own. And I’m so proud of...myself for making it possible.”

  Taliyah possessed her own brand?

  Of course she did. My goddess.

  “Wait. Are the big guy’s tattoos moving?” The entire group of harpies crowded around Roc, studying him as if he were a bug under a microscope.

  Taliyah draped herself over him before anyone could relive his memories, shouting, “Get. Out!”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Fine! I can take a hint. Even a subtle one.”

  “I call dibs on the room of my choice!”

  They filed out of the master bedroom, finally leaving him alone with his wife.

  When he opened his mouth to inquire about her state, Taliyah pressed a finger into his lips. “Don’t speak until you undress me.”

  The command held more power than her sister’s grenade, summoning a tide of passion.

  With slow precision, he lifted her top over her head, leaving her bare. Silvery-blond locks tumbled down her arms. He swallowed. As gently as possible, given the strength of his arousal, he urged her to lie on her front.

  She obeyed, a willing queen.

  “I want to worship you. These wings...” He smoothed her hair over one shoulder and kissed along her spine, nestling against each appendage. Her backside received a few nibbles. When she rocked her hips and gave a rough moan, he slipped a hand between her legs. Wet. Soaking. He thrust a finger deep, filling her with his heat. Gloriously tight. His shaft throbbed as her silken walls squeezed him.

  He kissed his way up, up. While licking her brand, he reached beneath her to knead her breasts. “I want to possess you.”

  Tremors shook her, her heart racing against his hand. “I want to worship you, too, Roc,” she said, already breathless.

  “Anything, Taya.” Everything. “But first I need to touch you more.” He couldn’t stop. How close he’d come to losing her.

  “Why don’t we get a little more comfortable, then?” She dematerialized slowly, ghosting through him, chilling and thrilling him. Then she solidified on top of his back. He flashed to face her, there and gone before she could fall. With her mouth just above his, she rasped, “I’ll let you play with me. Make me scream. Your every demand will be my every desire. But then...I get a turn. You’ll do whatever I tell you.”

  He groaned. “You want to tease your man?”

  “I do and I will. Just know when the time comes, I’ll be playing only as hard as you do.”

  “That sounds like a declaration of war, love.”

  “Oh, good.” She ran his earlobe between her teeth. “You understood.”

  Wicked temptress. No one had ever meant more to him than Taliyah.

  He turned his head to kiss the corner of her sexy mouth. “Your own sexual torment is assured, wife.”

  “Then my job is halfway done.”

  He slanted his mouth over hers, pushed her down and followed, rising above her. As she snaked her arms around him, he tore at his fly. When heated sex met heated sex, the kiss paused, the ecstasy too much. Not enough.

  “More,” she said.

  He was panting as he slanted his mouth over hers a second time. This kiss had a slower but far more powerful start, their tongues tangling together, savoring. No woman sweeter.

  Their scents combined, creating an intoxicating perfume. He grew light-headed. Heat pulsed in time to his heartbeat, as if he lived for this alone.

  A rosy flush spread over her, starting up top. He trailed it, licking and nipping along the elegant column of her throat, over her breasts and past her navel. Lower...

  As she undulated, crying out, he teased the edges of her sex, then lightly bit the tendon in her inner thigh. She gasped, her wet heat glistening.

  How she craves me!

  “Kiss me there,” she demanded.

  “My Taya aches, hmm?” He settled in, getting comfortable between her legs. As she undulated with increasing veracity, the breadth of his shoulders kept her legs apart for him, her body bare and vulnerable before him. “Does she ache enough?”

  “Do it,” she pleaded when his warm exhalation fanned her most intimate places.

  His mouth watered for her sweet honey, that plaintive tone fraying his control beyond repair. He licked her little slit and groaned. My paradise.

  He set in, sucking, flicking and circling. Taliyah scraped her claws through his hair, sinking the tips into his scalp to guide him where she wanted him. Tremors traveled through her limbs.

  Her reactions ignited his. His throbbing intensified. His breathing quickened. Nothing better than this.

  “Roc,” she cried when he flicked his stiffened tongue over her swollen clit. Her breathy moans filled the sultry air, and his pleasure surged.

  He licked and laved with abandon, driving two fi
ngers deep into her channel. Thrusting in, pulling out. In, out. Licking, laving. Indecipherable words left her. As her voice grew higher, a climax nearing, he stopped and climbed to his knees.

  Taliyah cursed his name—that, he understood. The next thing he knew, she’d flattened her foot against his chest and put him on his back. High with excitement and triumph, he gloried as she rose over him, her pale hair tumbling around him, a curtain separating him from the rest of the world. She raked a heavy-lidded, smoldering gaze over his body. There was no hint of ice. “I’ve made a decision. We’re not going to do this in order. My tit then your tat. We’re mixing things up.”

  Her lips were red and puffy from his kiss. Firelight danced over delicate features softer than ever before. A fantasy made flesh.

  “Is that so?” he rasped, swiping the pad of his thumb over her distended nipple.

  She arched into his touch. “Yes, it is. Also, I’m tagging in.”

  * * *

  Taliyah studied her prey. How sensuous he was, with his hair in disarray and her essence sheening his mouth. His skin shimmered with layers of his stardust, just as hers did. Muscles flexed with tension.

  Tracing a fingertip down his sternum, she told him, “Put your hands over your head.” She nipped his bottom lip. “And don’t come until I give you permission.”

  His pupils pulsed, a sure sign of his pleasure. He offered no resistance, reaching overhead to grip the headboard.

  She petted his chest and bent to lick his nipple. His entire body jerked. As promised, Taliyah played with him, letting her tongue dabble here and there while caressing the very soft skin along his very hard shaft. She cupped his testicles and tugged the way he liked. Anywhere she touched, she kissed. When hinges whined, she feared for the safety of the bed.

  “Grip the sheets,” she commanded, and he immediately obeyed.

  His claws ripped through the fabric. Sweat dotted him in places, and he pumped his hips every time she moved, his motions growing more and more forceful. Aggressive snarls brewed somewhere in his chest; she felt the vibration as she let her lips hover over his erection.

  Roc went still. “Enough teasing, Taya.”

  “Are you sure?” She held his gaze and licked a bead of pre-cum from his slit.

  His head fell back with a mighty groan. “Teasing is fine. Continue to tease.”

  As Taliyah sucked on the top, his gaze snapped back to her. His eyelids slitted. He heaved his breaths. On the edge?

  “Take another taste, love. Just one more. Then another.”

  She dragged her tongue across his entire length, and he shook the bed.

  “Whatever you do, Taya, do not stop.”

  No, she wouldn’t be stopping. He needed her to do this.

  And she needed to do it.

  Aching for him, she sucked his length down her throat. A hoarse cry left him, emboldening her. He was so big he stretched her jaw and so long she nearly gagged a time or two, but oh, she loved every second of it. She’d felt so empty without him; she’d craved some part of him inside some part of her.

  “Never felt...anything so...good, love. It’s so good.” He released the sheets to comb his fingers through her hair, then fist the strands in his very Roc-way.

  Mmm. She tasted pre-cum and wanted more. It was just as drugging as before. Need more. So she took it. She sucked him, sliding her mouth up and down, pumping her hand in sync. Every time he thrust his hips, as if the pleasure had become too much for him, he cursed and stilled.

  He showed concern for her, even when frenzied with lust.

  When her teeth lightly scraped the head, he shouted her name and bowed his back. Hot seed flooded her throat. After swallowing the last drop, she smiled up at him, dazed.

  Power suffused her. Life.

  “More,” she told him, dizzily hurrying to her knees. He’d already hardened again. “I want you inside me.”

  “Ride me, Taya.”

  Trembling, she lifted up just high enough to place the tip of his erection at her opening. Then she slid down...

  He thrust up with a roar, meeting and filling her.

  “Yes!” The stretch! The heat. The rapture. Taliyah nearly climaxed. So close.

  Though her body shouted for hard and fast, she rocked her hips with precision, easing into a slow rhythm. Rocking again. Just as he got used to the pace, she snapped her hips. They both gasped.

  With a growl, he clamped onto her waist, lifted her body from his—and thrust her down. Her back bowed, his length sliding deeper. There was no going slow after that.

  She was in heaven as he jolted up and kissed her. The kiss only grew more fevered as he stood, remaining deep inside her. His biceps flexed as he carried her to the desk, every step bouncing them together, wringing another gasp from her.

  In classic Astra fashion, he went the extra mile to remove anything in the way of what he wanted. He gripped the side of the desk recently installed to aid her studies, yanked it to its side, dumping everything off the surface, then setting it in place. He did this without ever releasing her or sliding out of her.

  After splaying her upon the surface, he hooked his arms under her legs, spread her knees wide and hammered into her. It was brutal—thrilling. He took her hard and fast, plunging deep.

  Unbearable bliss. Skin too tight, heart too fast. Muscles tightening, desperate for a release. And he wasn’t finished with his torment. He stroked her clit with his thumb.

  Guess he’d tagged in. She thrashed atop the desk, an eager vessel for his merciless thrusts. Her breasts jostled, her nipples throbbing. “Yes, yes. More, baby. Harder. Faster.”

  Harder. Faster. He made the most delicious, guttural noises as he rammed into her. Losing her mind for him, she raised an arm up and behind to grip the edge of the desk, sending him deeper. Almost...

  “Look at you,” he said, awed. His tempo eased, until he slowly ground against her. Never had he appeared more ruthless. “You are pleasure itself, Taya. And you are mine. I’ll never part with you.”

  He released her legs and leaned over, cupping her nape and yanking her up. Suddenly they were chest to chest, their mouths fused together, tongues dueling. Her fangs nicked him, and a bead of blood welled. As the sweetest whiskey teased her taste buds, pleasure itself, Taliyah screamed, her inner walls clenching all over his shaft as she climaxed.

  He hissed as her spasms continued on, his next plunge as frenzied as before. A vein bulged in his forehead. Breath sawed in and out of his mouth. He gripped the desk outside her thigh, his claws embedding in the wood.

  “Come with me, baby,” she pleaded and set her mouth over his pulse to suck the barest hint of his soul. “Let me feel your heat.”

  He bellowed, an orgasm ripping through him. His hips continued thrusting until she’d wrung the last drop of his searing seed.

  The agony that had etched his features only moments before softened into ecstasy, and he sagged against her, resting his forehead against her shoulder.

  They clung to each other, breathing each other, calming slowly. When he lifted his head, he shifted to the side and took her face in his hands.

  All gooey inside and still a bit dazed, she met his stare. Those magnificent golden irises glowed with tenderness.

  “We’ll find a way to be together,” he vowed. “We must.”

  Taliyah might—big might!—have misted up. Despite what he’d done in the past, Roc was choosing her over the sacrifice. He was all in. They would succeed.

  * * *

  Time was running out. Options, too. Only two days remained before the countdown clock zeroed out, but Taliyah and Roc were no closer to a solution. Her sisters, mother and consorts-in-law were working on a “quick fix.” So far, no luck.

  Neeka had bailed before Taliyah had gotten a chance to speak with her. Though her trust in the oracle endured, her irritation had reached new heights.


  There’d been some good news, though. The Astra and the Lords of the Underworld hadn’t killed each other. Best of all? The Astra had maybe kinda sorta fallen in love with Taliyah, as their leader had. Well, not as fervently as Roc. And not even to a degree anyone else would recognize. But she’d gotten to know the warriors, and their stoic acceptance screamed we adore you, o great one.

  Once, Silver had marched up to her and groused, “Control your harpies.”

  She’d winced for him. “Aw. Is the Astra not strong enough to handle the job?”

  He’d stormed off and had glared at her ever since, which was Astra Speak for I think you’re amazing. Just ask Roc.

  She’d had a similar experience with Halo. He’d stalked over to demand, “What have you done to my Commander?”

  “Nothing,” she’d sworn. “I didn’t shoot him in the face again, I swear!”

  He’d pinched the bridge of his nose, as if praying for patience. “I meant he’s smiling. Make it stop. It’s scaring the soldiers.”

  As if she could.

  When the warlord named Vasili had visited, she’d heard him mutter, “The Commander should spank you,” as he’d walked away from her.

  She hadn’t hesitated to respond. “Why? Does he want to lose a hand? Silly man. Doesn’t he know I’ll remove it for free?”

  In Taliyah’s spare time, she’d managed to forge a dagger with pieces of stone the phantoms had worn during their attack in the garden. She carried it always, hoping her father would dare to make an appearance.

  Her desire to kill him flourished daily. The way he’d tortured her people... He must pay.

  The harphantoms had recovered significantly, at least. They communicated without problem, and so far, they had refrained from feeding, filled up by the power Taliyah had released. But they were...feral. For everyone’s protection, Ian had moved them to the duplicate realm and brought the rest of the harpies here.

  The two armies worked well together, when they weren’t bickering. Would both groups be forced to watch as either Taliyah or Roc lost everything during the ceremony?