The Shadows

by J. R. Ward

  "Yes." Her eyes did not rise to meet his. They stayed locked at his hips. "Oh, yes. Let me see you."

  As he came to stand right in front of her, he said, "What about all those humans I was with."

  "You're going to bring them up now?" She took the tie to his own robe with one of her hands. "Really?"

  He stopped her from getting him naked. "Nothing has changed about me."

  "That's your hang-up, not mine."

  "In my tradition--"

  "Which is not mine."

  "--I am contaminated."

  "Why are you still talking."

  With that, she shook his hold free and uncovered him, loosening the tie, pulling the folds of black fabric from his body. His sex was fully erect, jutting out between them.

  And that was the next thing she put her hands on.

  Trez groaned and let his head fall back on his spine.

  "You're hot," she breathed as she leaned in and kissed the skin over his heart. "And hard."

  "Selena, I'm serious." He fumbled to stop her before she got to stroking. "I want to honor you--"

  "You're wasting time."

  With that she got on her knees and took over. As she was a tall female, her mouth was at the perfect height, and God save them both, she put it to use, extending her pink tongue to lick at the head of him. The velvet rasp left him shaking all over, and before he went the way of the robes and hit the fucking floor, he leaned forward and braced both hands on the nearest thing he could reach.

  The bureau. Or it could have been the hood of a car. Santa's sleigh. A refrigerator.

  Warm and wet, she drew him in, the suction and all the slick wiping out the world, bringing him instantly to the brink.

  Gritting his teeth, he groaned, "I'm going to come--oh, fuck, I'm going to--"

  He had some thought that he didn't want to disrespect her by orgasming in her--

  Selena eased back, opened her mouth, and extended that magic tongue. Looking up at him, she started to pump hard at the same time she lazily licked at his tip.

  Trez lasted, oh, maybe a second and a half. And as his release kicked out of him, she took it all, swallowing, sucking, easing back so he could cover her lips and her face. God help her, he kept orgasming, an endless sexual urge locking onto his body as he marked her, his scent blanketing her in an ownership that was primordial.

  Defend. Protect. Love.

  All of it was in this sacred space.

  Mine.

  When he finally stilled, she sat back on her heels and then, with a series of kill-me-slow moves, she licked around her mouth. Brought up her fingers, captured the slick trail on her chin, and sucked things clean. Looked down at her perfect breasts.

  Cupping the full weights, she smiled at what had dripped down, making the swells and those tight nipples of hers glisten. "You got me messy."

  "Where did you learn how to do that?" he choked out.

  At least that was what he'd meant to say. The syllables came out a jumble of incoherent sound.

  "What was that?" she whispered, before lifting one of her breasts up and bending her tongue down.

  She lapped at herself.

  The growl that came out of Trez's mouth was something that, if he were her, he would have been afraid of.

  Selena wasn't. She just laughed throatily. "Is there something else you wish to mark?"

  *

  Freedom.

  As Selena sat on her knees in front of Trez, with his taste in her mouth and his scent all over her skin, she reveled in the sense of sexual freedom that had overtaken her. The liberation seemed entirely at odds with the death sentence that she lived under, and yet her lack of time was what spared her any awkwardness or self-conscious worry. She was flying above the constraints that had long pinned her to the ground, her training as an ehros letting her soar on the currents of sex that ran, thick as tangible ropes, between their bodies.

  With no idea how long she had, and under such frustration that she had wasted so much time, she was urgent in her personal expression, embracing any desires she had and acting on them.

  All of which were with Trez.

  And as if he were feeling the same, he leaned down and lifted her from the floor. Her joints protested at the change of position, but the complaints were nothing except murmurs against the roughshod lust she had for him.

  She needed the penetration. By his body.

  Trez took her over to the bed and laid her out on her stomach, his big, warm hands stroking her from shoulder blade to back of the thigh before lifting her up onto all fours and spreading her knees. Ducking her head, she wanted to see him--and she looked past the heavy, hanging swells of her breasts, watching him come up behind her, his sex bobbing as he moved into position to--

  It was not his erection that brushed against her.

  As his hands went to her hips, his thumbs dug into her butt and pulled away, until her sex split wider for him. And then he went in with his mouth, his lips finding her, stroking wet on wet, sucking, eating. With total domination, his tongue licked up and down, penetrated, flicked at the top of her sex until she jerked her way into an orgasm, each kick of pleasure pushing her into his face.

  When he was finally finished, he jacked up, his fists punching into the sheets on either side of her.

  "I'm going to fuck you now," he gritted out in her ear.

  "Oh, God, please--"

  Selena shouted loudly as he jabbed into her, stretching the inside of her nearly to the breaking point. The pain was the perfect bite--and then he started to pump. There was no slow-and-steady windup; hard, pistoning power made her see stars until she lost the strength to hold her upper body off the bed. Collapsing face-first into sheets that smelled of him, she struggled for breath and loved the suffocation as each thrust shoved her face-first into the pillows.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  The headboard was having the same rough ride she was, nailing into the wall, the sound reverberating along with a grunting from him that was all animal.

  Craning her head around her shoulder, she strained to see him.

  Trez was magnificent, his pectorals and shoulders seized up, his huge arms carved in muscle, his abdominals ribbed as his hips punched at her. As he orgasmed, his head fell back as it had when she had first taken hold of him, and he howled, his bright white fangs flashing long and deadly, his neck cording up on both sides, his hips slamming into her and locking in as he pumped, pumped, pumped. . . .

  He filled her up.

  And her sex milked him, urging him on until she felt the wetness on the inside of her thighs.

  He didn't so much disengage as fall over to the side, as if every ounce of strength had been spent from him. The headboard let out one last bam! as he landed and bounced, his hands and arms, his torso and legs going loose from all that straining effort.

  His mouth moved, his dark eyes meeting hers and staying there.

  She had no clue what he was saying to her. She didn't care. Her ass was still up in the air, her sex humming from the hard use, her body as satiated as his looked. Air currents, from the vent above, drifted down from the ceiling, brushing against everything that was exposed, tickling, cooling.

  That had been the sex of her life. Hard and raw, the way she had been told and trained it could and should be.

  Before Selena allowed herself to lie to the side and slip into her own sleep, she smiled so widely her cheeks hurt.

  She had been, for the first time in her life, not just well and truly fucked, but marked by the male she loved.

  Even with the future she had to face, it was hard not to feel blessed.

  TWENTY-TWO

  IAm regained consciousness, but kept his eyes closed. What woke him up was the shooting pain in the back of his head--that and the ice-cold floor his naked body was lying on. For a moment, he considered playing possum and trying to get an idea of where he was through his hearing, sense of smell, and instincts, but there was no reason to.

  He knew exactly where they'd
put him.

  Fucking double-crossing bastard.

  Opening his lids, he saw a whole lot of nothing much. Then again, he was on his stomach, one arm trapped under his torso like he'd been thrown in--

  A door opened over in the corner behind him. And he knew that not by any hinge creaking, but by the sudden addition of voices and footsteps in the cell.

  "Why would I check his marking?" a male asked. Not s'Ex.

  "It is procedure."

  Yup. Nothing had changed.

  iAm reclosed his eyes and stayed perfectly still except for breathing shallowly as the footfalls came closer.

  There was a gasp. And then fingers palpated the small of his back, as if they were stretching the skin where he had been marked, as all males were, when they were six years of age.

  "That cannot be right."

  The footsteps left in a hurry, and he assumed the panel was shut again.

  Lifting his head, his vision blurred and came back into focus. There was no one else in the well-lit twenty-by-twenty cell, the glossy white walls so slick he could see his dark reflection in the panels of marble.

  His head hurt so damned much, he was forced to lay it back down again, his cheek finding the exact spot on the stone that had been warmed to the temperature of his body while he'd been out of it. His arm was killing him, the limb both numb and painful at the same time, but he lacked the energy to move the thing free of his upper body's weight. Lying there, breathing, existing, he had no idea how long he'd been out, what they were going to do to him, or whether he was going to get out of this bright idea he'd had alive.

  From out of nowhere, he had a mental image of him leaving Sal's the night before, stepping free of the restaurant he loved, talking to the waiters.

  He found himself wanting to rewind time and go back to that incarnation of himself, his memories of the way the night had been cool on his face, and how the smoke from his waiters' cigarettes had curled up off of the lit tips, so clear that, for a moment, it seemed impossible that he could not return to that place in time . . . step into the shoes he had been wearing then . . . reassume his suit of skin just as he re-formed after dematerializing.

  But of course, time didn't work like that. And memory was but a television show of your own life, a movie screen you could play witness to, but not interact with, change the course of, redirect.

  Desperation for Trez, the great motivator in his life, had propelled him back into the heart of the enemy he and his brother shared.

  And there was a very good chance this shit was going to get the best of him.

  With a groan, he rolled himself onto his side and blinked a couple of times. His weapons, like the robing he had been wearing, were long gone. And there was nothing else in the cell--

  The door opened, the panel sliding soundlessly into the wall. And what came in was robed from head to foot in black folds of cloth, the face covered, the feet covered, even the hands gloved.

  Was it the Grim Reaper? he wondered. Had he passed out and was dreaming--

  A subtle scent registered.

  But not in his nose. Through his body.

  Like a lick of electricity.

  The door was shut behind the tall, robed figure. And as the male approached, iAm did his best to assume some kind of defensible position.

  He didn't make it far at all with that one.

  A gloved hand reached out; he was rolled back over; and then he felt a touch on the base of his spine.

  "I will . . . kill you . . ." iAm mumbled. "Hurt you . . ."

  How, he hadn't a clue. But he was going out fighting, that was for damn sure.

  The figure stepped back. Tilted its head as if it were considering the method of death that would be used.

  In the s'Hisbe, most prisoners were tortured first. Tenderizing, iAm had always thought. Then they were slaughtered and either buried or eaten by s'Ex and his guards, depending on the offense.

  The latter was a proud tradition. Also took care of the whole what-to-do-with-the-body problem.

  iAm curled up fists and braced himself for whatever came at him.

  Except the figure simply regarded him for a long moment. And then backed over to the door and left.

  Oh. Okay. They'd verified who he was, and there was no reason to kill him before they got Trez back here. That would be a waste of leverage.

  Shit.

  Relaxing his muscles, he tried to get himself to go loose and prayed that his body's natural healing abilities took care of the concussion quickly.

  He was going to need to be able to back up his fighting words with more than an inert body and limbs made of lead.

  Goddamn it, he should never have trusted s'Ex.

  *

  Back in Caldwell, Paradise sat on her bed, legs tucked under her, eyes on the night sky on the far side of her closed, locked windows.

  "So you're going to do it?" she said into her cell phone.

  Peyton laughed. "Hell, yeah, are you kidding me? I'm dying to get out of here. Ever since the raids I've been on lockdown, and the fact that my parents are letting me go into that training program is a miracle."

  She focused on the latches on her own bedroom door, which were, as a matter of fact, in the locked position.

  "Wonder if my dad would let me," she murmured.

  There was a pause. Then a laugh. "Oh, my God, Paradise. No. Uh-uh. No way."

  "Yeah, you're probably right. He's really protective--"

  "That program is not a place for females."

  She frowned. "Excuse me. The letter from the Brotherhood said we were welcome to try out."

  "Okay, number one, 'try out' does not mean 'accepted.' Have you ever even done a push-up?"

  "Well, I'm sure I could if I--"

  "Number two, you're not your average female. I mean, hello, you're a member of a Founding Family. Your father is First Adviser to the King. You need to be preserved to breed."

  Paradise's mouth dropped open. "I cannot believe you just said that."

  "What? It's true. Don't pretend the rules are the same for females like you. Like, if some scrub civilian who happens to wear a skirt wants to give it a shot, fine. That loss means nothing to the species. But, Parry, there aren't many of you left. For males like me? We don't want to get mated to anyone but you, and there are like, what, four or five of you left?"

  "That is the most reductive reasoning I've ever heard. I gotta go."

  "Aw, come on. Don't be like that."

  "Fuck you. I'm more than just a pair of ovaries you can put a ring on."

  She hung up and thought about throwing her phone across the room. When she couldn't manage to follow through on the impulse, she then got worried that all the manners that had been inbred and reinforced in her meant Peyton was right.

  She was just a hothouse flower, good for nothing but tea parties and young and--

  As the cell started ringing again, she tossed it onto her duvet, got down on her floor, and planted her palms flat on her needlepoint rug. Kicking out her legs, she balanced on the balls of her feet.

  "Right," she said, gritting her teeth. "Up and down. Like a hundred times."

  She got the down right on the first try, her arms more than willing to oblige. And as her nose came in contact with the depiction of a vase of flowers, she was in full-on beast mode, ready to punch it up and hit this hard.

  Up was . . . only okay.

  Down again to the carpet. Annnnnd up.

  Sort of. The muscles in her upper arms started to tremble; her elbows wobbled; her shoulders ached.

  She did three. Or, like, two and a half. Before she collapsed on the--

  "What are you doing?"

  With a yelp, Paradise flipped herself over. Her father was in the doorway to her bedroom, putting away the key he'd used to open things up--and his eyebrows had popped so high on his forehead, they were all the way to the base of his hairline.

  "Push-ups," she said as she panted.

  "Why-ever for?"

  Ask hi
m, she thought. Just come right out and say, I want to join the Brotherhood's training center program--

  Her phone started to ring again.

  "Do you need to get that?" her father asked.

  "No. Father, I have a--"

  "Something has arisen, dear one." He shut and relocked the door. "And I must be frank with you."

  Paradise brought her legs up and circled her arms around them. "Have I done something wrong?"

  "Oh, indeed no." He shook his head as he looked at her. "You are the very best daughter any male could e'er ask for."

  As her phone went silent, she had to wonder how many of Peyton's views her father shared. And how many times Peyton was going to try to call her back.

  "I need you to pack up some things," he said.

  Paradise recoiled. "Why?"

  "I'm going to ask you to leave the house for a couple of weeks."

  A cold flush went through her. "What did I do?"

  "Oh, love." He came over and knelt down. "Nothing. It is just, I think you might enjoy having a job."

  Now she was the one with the mile-high eyebrows. "Really?"

  She had broached the subject a number of months ago, when yet another night taking piano lessons and doing complicated, multi-stitched needlepoint had made her feel like she was losing her mind. But he had carefully denied her in the interest of her safety--a point she had both respected and been frustrated by.

  It was hard to argue that the world wasn't a very dangerous place for vampires.

  "What's changed?" Then she thought about their distant relation. "Wait, is that male going to continue to stay here?"

  "It has naught to do with him. Rather, my work as First Adviser is growing more complicated and burdensome and I require someone I may trust with the King's business to help me. I can think of no one more appropriate than yourself."

  "Really," she said, narrowing her eyes. "There isn't some other reason?"

  "For truth. I promise you." He smiled. "So what do you say--would you like to work with me?"

  With a sudden lunge of happiness, she tackled her father in a hug. "Oh, thank you! Yes! I'm so excited!"

  He laughed. "Okay, but you'll have to move into the King's audience mansion. Worry not, you shall not be alone. You may take your maid doggen, and the Brotherhood have the building fully staffed--"

  Paradise leaped up to her feet and ran to her walk-in closet. Throwing the doors open, she started pulling out pieces from her set of monogrammed Louis Vuitton luggage.

  "I'll be ready in a half hour! Fifteen minutes!" She yanked out built-in drawers, fisting up underwear, bras, tank tops. "Oh, will you get Vuchie? She'll be so excited!"