“I killed it.”
“Good,” she said in a clipped voice.
Boreas didn’t like the sudden tightness around her pert mouth. There was an overwhelming need driving him and he did not deny himself—he reached out and smoothed the tension on her lower lip with the pad of his thumb. He’d forgotten the last vestiges of dirt on his hands and saw the few specks of soil left behind with some dismay.
So he leaned forward and licked the dirt away.
Vetiver gasped. Her breath played over his tongue, filled with the warm flavors of nutmeg, vanilla and pumpkin, and he grew hungry for a deeper taste. He was a warrior who took what he wanted, when he wanted it, and now was not the time to be timid.
There wasn’t much of it left, time.
The tumult approached. Not just in the air outside her home, but in the very core of the island itself. If Vetiver didn’t realize it yet, she soon would. He must seize the moment if he was to have any chance at the prize.
He grabbed the sides of her head in his hands and pulled her face closer, branding her lips with the searing passion of his kiss. There, between his palm, he held all that she was, all her memories, thoughts and desires, and found he wanted to know each and every bit of her as well as he knew himself.
He plundered. He pillaged. He claimed ownership. He had her breath in his mouth, in his head like a breeze, and craved more. He drew her gasps deeper into his lungs, laving the roof of her mouth with his tongue, reveling in every nuance of her lips, which seemed perfectly fashioned to fit against his.
The thick, curling tendrils of her hair wrapped around his fingers like vines. Her tiny hands were on his shoulders, her fingernails exquisitely sharp, digging into the tunic he wore, testing the muscles beneath.
He sucked her upper lip between his. Tilted her head in his hands and sipped every exhalation into his being. Needing more, needing it now, he lowered one hand to her generous tits and squeezed one firm globe.
Then his world exploded into emerald green, blinding him, searing his eyes.
He twirled, flying up off the bed, flipping in the air and landing on the balls of his feet. Spots danced in his vision, his eyes watering madly. But he was ready to face the threat that had caught them unawares and interrupted them so rudely.
“You dick!” Vetiver snarled, falling off the edge of the bed onto the floor—witch she may be, but her reflexes were still human. But when Boreas moved to help her, she spat at him like a cat. “Back off. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Boreas blinked away the burn of the light—her light, by Grimm—and frowned. “Do you not enjoy kisses then?”
“Kisses, yes.” She gained her feet and faced him, holding out her left hand in front of her like a shield. Indeed it served her well as one, for it glowed near as bright as a neon sun. “Not suffocation. You were robbing all my breath, what kind of kiss is that?”
As strong as he was, Boreas could not abide sunlight. Very few of his people could, and even those lucky few were limited to short periods of exposure only. This light emanating from her burned like stinging nettles. He felt a surge of fury bubbling inside him. How dare she spurn his advance? She had kissed him back; he’d felt her tongue play against his most willingly. Now was not the moment to be coy, damn her. “You liked my taste.”
Vetiver’s swollen mouth gaped. She scoffed, rolled her eyes and put her right hand on her hip. “Whatever. But next time, when you ‘kiss’ a girl, don’t suck all her breath down. Humans need to breathe.” She looked at her Familiar and scowled. “What is it, Ball?”
The hulking brute stared at her, huffed and left the room.
“Fine! Leave me to fend for myself, you traitor. He should have asked first. He shouldn’t have smothered me!”
The Familiar didn’t respond in any manner Boreas could detect.
Now Boreas felt a burning heat suffuse his cheeks and he fumed, waffling between shame and indignation. “No one has ever spoken ill of my kisses before. Many a female would attest to my skill.”
“Oh really?” Her features twisted. “How many—wait, never mind. That’s none of my business.” The glow of her left hand was waning, dimming, dying out. She used it to pinch the bridge of her nose, as if she were suffering a headache. “Don’t get your panties in a wad. I’m not saying you’re a bad kisser, Boreas. You’re a good enough—”
He was on her before she could finish speaking. He put his arms around her waist, lifted her up against him and kissed her.
This time, he breathed into her.
This time he filled her with the danger of his Winds.
This time there was no caution in his kiss. No restraint. He gave as much as he’d dared take before, unleashing the squall inside him, letting it rage into her, unchecked.
This time her arms went around his neck as she held on in the gale and kissed him back just as hungrily as he kissed her. Unafraid. Uninhibited. His gale did not threaten her.
Vetiver was his equal.
Chapter Four
A tempest lashed through the maze of the Device home. It tore open the doors, sent papers flying, overturned an easy chair. It whipped Vetiver’s hair around them, but left his hair untouched. It tugged at her dress, played across her bare skin like a thousand hungry fingers, but it ignored Boreas completely. He stood in the eye of it. Unmarked.
It was his magic.
She could smell his signature on the gust, filling her head with images of lust and carnality. A mixture of damp, green, growing things. Shelled nuts left to cure in the hot sun. Dark, rich soil, fertile for planting. Freshly cut trees, sticky with sap. Sweet herbs. The cold signature of spring water bubbling up from a granite well. The acrid bite of ozone before a lightning strike. The far, shady hearts of unexplored forests smothered in moss. This perfumatory intoxicated her.
But it was his kiss that held her spellbound.
Where before he’d taken her breath, now he breathed for her. He filled her with his essence. Imbued her with his power, making her a part of his storm, not just its target. His breath reached down into her and awakened every erogenous zone she possessed—and some she’d been completely oblivious to before this.
Her neck fell back in a swoon that melted her whole body to pliancy. Boreas’ lips moved to scorch a trail down her jaw, before raining a volley of kisses on the curvature of her throat. He was pressed to her, full length, leaving no doubt in her mind just how determined he was to go beyond kisses and breezes.
The heat of his skin seared her nipples until they became hard. Until they ached. Her breasts felt heavy, swollen. Just as he was swollen. His cock was prodding the vee of her thighs in a thick, solid extension of his desire. The muscles on his chest were dense and strong, the bulge of his biceps roped and rigidly flexed. Though her feet dangled several inches off the ground, he showed no strain in holding her, keeping her tightly imprisoned in the cage of his arms while his whirlwind lashed her, whipped her, pleasured her.
Her toes curled. His Wind massaged her breasts, buttocks and legs. It draped her shoulders with layers of tickling, teasing coolness.
Vetiver was thrown into the vortex of such exquisite sensuality that she almost came when he pressed his hot lips to her madly beating pulse. He drew her hypersensitive skin between his teeth, stinging her. He sucked hard, marking her. This delicious pain hit a reflex inside her body, squeezing her womb. The breeze lifted her legs and Vetiver eagerly wrapped them around him, hooking her ankles in the small dip at the base of his very long spine, just above his clenched buttocks.
He put his hand under her bottom and pulled her closer.
It was all she could do to not to gyrate against him. Her swollen vulva rested on the ridge of his desire. His length pressed against the seam of her labia and she was instantly damp behind the trivial scrap of her satin panties. The pressure was enough to make her crave more. She tightened her legs. The flexing of her thighs felt exquisite, so she tightened them further.
His first kiss had been a warning. This
kiss was a promise of forever. And ever.
She never stood a chance.
He ground his hips into hers, rooting deeper between her legs. She might as well have been naked. He almost entered her through their clothes. His lean hips undulated in circles, dancing them together in swirls upon the floor with his agile footwork. She couldn’t help it, she moved with him, rolling her hips.
All the while, the gale ravaged across the island, through her home, around her limbs and hair.
Then Vetiver was on the bed again, this time flat on her back, her buttocks on the edge of the mattress with her legs still locked around him. He leaned over her, a dark cloud of hair, a volcanic glow of amber eyes, and brushed the curls from her face with his fingertips. “How do you like my kisses now, woman?”
She gaped, dumbstruck. Was he just doing this to prove a point?
But it seemed he required no words from her, just the response of her body to his. He slowly tugged the tiny straps of her dress down her shoulders and pushed the material over her breasts, down to her waist, freeing her to the touch of his hands. He cupped both breasts and used his thumbs and forefingers to twist and tug her nipples until they were long and stiffly pouting.
He licked his lips and bent his sleek head to her, drawing one nipple tightly between his lips while he tended the other with his free hand. His hair was a cool wash over her sweat-dampened skin and she gloried in it.
Boreas ground into her, as insatiable as his Winds, untamable as his storm, it didn’t matter that she was still half dressed. He pumped his hips between the wide spread of her legs and rubbed himself against her until she was moaning in short, gasping notes of desperate pleasure.
His hot lips moved to her other breast, the wet nipple left behind suddenly cold and bereft without his tongue playing over it. But now he drew a nipple so deeply into his mouth it seemed he would swallow her breast whole, like a plum too ripe and juicy to bite, but too sweet to waste.
Her heart dropped at his feet, only too eager to let him have his way. She’d never felt so naked. So raw. And he wasn’t even inside her yet.
But he was inside her. In her head. Her spirit. Inside her cunt and womb. He flew into her like his breeze, blowing away all caution. All reservation and doubt. Baring her. Readying her for total domination.
Leaving her no choice. It was succumb, surrender, submit. Slave to his pleasure. Her pleasure. Servant to his desire. Her desire. Vessel for his need. Their need. She would be his or she would cease to exist, it was that simple. Without this, without them, half of her was dead already.
She was soaking wet through her panties, dampening the front of his trousers. So close to release. To jumping off a cliff she’d never guessed could exist, into an abyss that would bind them in shadow forever…
There was a ringing in her ears.
“Wait,” she gasped.
Boreas pumped his hips against her and she saw stars dancing at the edges of her vision. His mouth sucked her nipple noisily.
There would be no going back after this. She felt it in the domineering air he wore like a crown. He was relentlessly staking his claim on her…
“No!” she yelled over the roar of the tempest and the roar of the blood in her veins. “I am Vetiver Device, of no small power, and I will not be owned by you or any man!” She shoved at him, feeling the armlet burn low on her biceps, branding her skin as it awoke with her sudden rage.
He ignored her, sucking her breast deep into his mouth, his fingers bruising her hips where he held her still to accept his movements between her legs.
She put her fingers in his hair, felt a moment’s hesitation—his hair was so silky it made her ache, made her want to give him all of her, tore away her will—but she shoved the weakness aside with a curse. “I belong to myself. You will not dominate me!”
The fire in the armlet zinged down her arm, lighting up her hand like a white dwarf star.
Boreas roared and jumped back, out of her light. The side of his head where her projective hand had touched was red and angry. Vetiver sat up and straightened her clothing with her right hand. It was awkward work, but she was too intent on this new and amazing talent she’d unearthed inside her, too curious about why her light should hurt an Elemental like Boreas and grateful that she had some weapon against him.
Boreas panted. His loose trousers did nothing to hide his desire. His cock was alarmingly large, clearly swollen, tenting the damp material at his crotch—damp from her body’s eager response to him. “I would have you as my equal,” he growled. “It is your own stubborn nature that makes you feel threatened by what brews between us. There is no time to woo you gently. And you are not one for soft-spoken promises and light caresses. You are a woman of prodigious passions. I felt your response as keenly as my own.”
There was a ringing in her ears. “We have other things to think about…” She knew the excuse was lame before she started talking. She wanted him so badly it scared her.
That was the real problem. It scared her.
The ringing in her ears wasn’t abating. If anything, it seemed louder now that her head was clearing of the crimson haze of pleasure, frustration and anger.
“Do not run from this, Vetiver. You called me, remember?”
“It wasn’t a cosmic booty call,” she snapped, though the faint image of a baby flickered in her head. “I need your help.”
“And you will have it.” His voice turned cryptic. “And me as well.”
Ball came bounding into the room, growling low in his throat. Vetiver spared him a glance and experienced a frantic urgency that had nothing to do with the shifting of her world in Boreas’ embrace.
“Those are weather sirens.” She turned eyes wide with dazed fright to Boreas’ stoic features, still ruddy from passion. The ringing in her ears was the wail of the early warning system of an incoming gale. Already she knew Boreas enough that she could read the answer to her unspoken question in his eyes. But he spoke the words anyway.
“My hurricane waits on the ocean, not far off the coast.”
A hurricane? Vetiver shot to her feet, reeling. “Well stop it! We have to evacuate the island first.” Then it dawned on her. This was how Boreas would help her. With the island mostly vacant, no one would interfere with the Warding ritual.
“All humans cower before a storm. They are already on the move,” he confirmed. “The bridge to the mainland will see them all to safety if they are not too stupid to linger.”
Ball huffed and paced. Something else nagged at Vetiver, deep within the corners of her mind. Something wasn’t right. And she wasn’t seeing it yet. But it was there, lurking. And it was bothering Ball, too, she could see.
“The equinox isn’t for two more days,” she reasoned. “You can’t maintain a storm for that long without garnering too much unwanted attention to this place. I can’t afford that—this business needs to be as secret as possible.”
Boreas tilted his head, lending him a predatory air. His eyes blazed. “The cyclone doesn’t need two days to serve its purpose.”
Ball growled again.
Vetiver swallowed down a sneaking suspicion that made her skin crawl. “But then everyone will come back before I’ve had time to perform the ritual, making the evacuation pointless. Unless…” She faltered, eyeing him. “What are you planning, Boreas? What are you going to do with my island?”
His indigo lashes blinked slowly. “You called me, witch. I came.” He smiled, a sly twist of his full lips that made her nipples stiffen. “This island is no longer yours to guard. Are you not grateful so weighty a burden is lifted?”
She gasped. “No!” Ball nudged her side and she shoved his head away impatiently. “My family has kept watch over this island for over three hundred years. This is our land—”
“The land belongs to itself. As you belong to yourself—don’t deny it, you just said the words. The land will not be owned by any mortal. It warrants that much respect from all, but most especially from a magical being like y
ourself. It knows the role it plays—a doorway to evil—and it understands that it can no longer be sealed shut. It is over.”
Before she knew what she’d intended, Vetiver threw out a surge of light from her hand. But Boreas anticipated her lash of anger and had crossed to a far corner of the bedroom in the blink of an eye. “Damn you!” she cried, her light dying. “You can’t do this! You cannot take what’s mine.”
“It is done.” He enunciated each word with a step in her direction, until they stood toe to toe. “You are the last of your line. I heard you speak the words. You cannot be the sole custodian of so great a responsibility. Anything could happen, an accident, an illness, and you would be gone. Your protection would be gone. You are too fragile to risk. The land knows this and so should you.”
“Then help me,” she pleaded. “Stay with me and help me set the wards. Don’t destroy it because I had a moment of weakness. Give me a chance.”
“What do you ward against? Do you even know?” His teeth were bared. “What fears do you have that would spur so vibrant a woman into wasting her life protecting these sheep who disdain her efforts?”
It seemed he knew her every secret. She was ashamed now that in her moment of despair, she’d called on him. She was alarmed at what she feared he meant to do now that he’d been called forth.
“What do you ward against,” he repeated, towering over her like a threat.
“You know,” she said faintly.
“I know, yes. I know well what you fear. But do you understand what you face? Tell me what you protect these people from, Vetiver Device? What frightens you so much that you broke a binding spell to summon me?”
Her hands were fists at her sides and she brought them up now to pound on his wide chest. “The Unnamed! This island is a doorway to their world and if I don’t set the wards, bind the gates shut, then they’ll spill out and consume everyone.”
Winded Page 3
