Velvet Cataclysm: Princes of the Underground, Book 1

by BETH KERY

  Kavya knelt. The pleated fabric that draped from the top of his odd hat fell onto his sculpted features. The ornate mahogany footboard blocked her vision, but a few seconds later, the wolf went quiet. Kavya stood.

  “I can explain, Christina. I was going to earlier, but then…well, better late than never I suppose.” He bent and lifted Aidan into his arms effortlessly. Christina whimpered when she saw he carried the familiar figure of her eleven-year-old son. She’d suspected Aidan had been that thin, suffering wolf, but seeing the evidence firsthand caused a wave of fear and nausea to sweep through her.

  “We need to get him to bed. He’ll have a fever tonight. It’s always that way for a first change.” Saint helped her stand to make room on the bed for Aidan. He kept his hands on her shoulders, but she shrugged him off, staring at her son’s face while Kavya settled him on the bed. Aidan’s cheeks were unnaturally flushed and perspiration gleamed on his face.

  “I need to take him to the hospital,” she said hoarsely.

  “Have you forgotten you can’t leave Whitby?” Saint asked from behind her.

  “Are you planning on keeping us prisoner here?” she challenged.

  “If need be.” The fury in his gaze confused her. What right did he have to be angry?

  “What the hell have you done, Kavya?” A chill went down Christina’s spine at the violence she sensed in Saint as he asked the question with lash-like intensity.

  Kavya sighed. “You accuse me of making the boy a shapeshifter? Well…I suppose you might. The wolf possesses a pure, dignified animal soul. I deemed it best for my experiment.”

  Saint moved so quickly that Christina didn’t even have time to blink. He wrapped his hand around Kavya’s throat and squeezed. “You were doing experiments on that boy?” he roared.

  “Please…Saint… Calm down. Let…me explain,” Kavya grated out through a constricted windpipe. He inhaled raggedly when Saint lessened his hold slightly. “I haven’t experimented on the boy. I suppose you could argue that I am partially responsible for the boy’s wolf genes, but you are as much so.”

  “Are you mad? I never would bite Aidan, let alone embrace him.”

  “Of course you didn’t take Aidan in the Final Embrace. But you are responsible for his wolf aspects, nonetheless.”

  Saint went still as he met Kavya’s intense stare. Christina sensed a message pass between them, but couldn’t comprehend its content. Saint’s grip on Kavya’s throat slowly released.

  “That’s not…that’s not possible,” Christina thought she heard Saint mutter hoarsely under his breath.

  “Silly to deny the obvious,” Kavya said as he smoothed his rumpled, dirty robes.

  “What’s going on in here?”

  Christina turned to see Alison standing in the doorway, wearing her jeans and a half camisole that revealed a silver ring in her bellybutton, her hair sticking out at various odd angles.

  “Hey…what’s wrong with Aidan?” the girl asked. Her gaze transferred to Kavya. “Who’s he?”

  “Saint, untie me,” Christina demanded.

  Saint looked around. He seemed disoriented…dazed.

  “I haven’t got time for all of this now,” Christina hissed. “My son is ill. I need to take care of him. Untie me.”

  She saw his muscular throat convulse as he swallowed thickly. He nodded and moved behind her, loosening the knot he’d made in the silk braiding from the bedspread.

  As soon as he’d released her wrists, Christina started anxiously toward Aidan. He felt hot beneath her fingertips as she stroked his hair back from his face. He moaned in his sleep. “Alison?” she asked without turning around. “Will you go to the coach house and get a few items for Aidan’s fever, please?”

  “Sure,” Alison replied dubiously.

  “The fever will break by morning. There is little we can do until it runs its course. He is not in any mortal danger, Christina.” She realized that Saint stood near her.

  “I still want Alison to get the things,” she said shakily. She felt like her world had just completely tilted off its axis and she was floundering, falling through empty space, desperate for something to grab onto. She turned when Saint put his hand on her shoulder. A rogue tear spilled down her cheek.

  “He’s going to be all right,” he said.

  “So you say.”

  “So I say,” Saint said.

  “I don’t know what to believe. All I know is Aidan’s life just changed forever and you two are somehow to blame,” she said, giving both him and Kavya an accusatory glance. “I also know my son is burning up with fever. If you have something relevant to say about making him well, say it now. Otherwise, I’d appreciate it if you two would leave us alone. Alison?” She beckoned to the girl, effectively dismissing the two males.

  Saint straightened. His face looked like it’d been carved from stone. “I know you’re upset, Christina, but I’m not going to allow you to leave Whitby’s grounds. Not until Teslar has been eliminated as a threat.”

  “It would seem things are pretty damn dangerous for us at Whitby as well,” Christina replied, refusing to meet Saint’s gaze.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kavya didn’t flinch when Saint slammed the door to the library. He sat calmly on one of the twelve armchairs that surrounded a large, square, polished cherry table. Various books were stacked on it, in addition to several rolled maps. His expression was that of polite distraction as he watched his charge stalk into the room, his eyes broadcasting a message that would have made even the bravest of humans quaver and run. Saint placed his fingertips on the table and leaned across the corner.

  “Explain yourself,” he bit out.

  “I am sure you read the gist of my message while we were downstairs just now. What part would you have me elaborate upon?”

  “How about the part where you suggested Aidan was my son?” Saint seethed.

  “Hmmm, yes,” Kavya murmured. He placed his elbows on the arms of the chair and made a steeple of his fingers as he considered Saint thoughtfully. “I take it from your manner you’re still unbelieving?”

  “It’s not possible!” Saint bellowed, shoving his upper body weight off the table. He began to pace back and forth before the marble fireplace, a coiled spring of sinew and muscle. “The Princes and their clones have no souls. We are sterile! You yourself have told me so, and none of us have fathered a child in almost six centuries on this planet.”

  Kavya shrugged. “If there is one thing I know as a biological alchemist, it’s that change is inevitable. In the process of evolution, it’s a given that what is true today will be false tomorrow.”

  Saint paused in his restless pacing. “Aidan’s father is Richard Fioran. You can’t be serious in claiming I fathered him.”

  Kavya leaned forward in his chair. “Surely you’re not suggesting that it’s an impossibility? The opportunity occurred, did it not? Christina may believe that she first met you eight years ago when her new boss at LifeLine told her about the coach house for rent at Whitby, but you two had met before that. It’s a foregone conclusion, even if I hadn’t read your mind in regard to the matter. I’m sorry for the intrusion, but the incident was much more important than you might expect. You and I both know that you knew of Christina years before she and Aidan moved to Whitby. You encouraged the manager at LifeLine to hire her. In fact, you suggested to her boss that he mention the coach house to her and the extraordinarily good rent.”

  Saint’s heart pounded in his ears. He stared at Kavya with a mixture of incredulity, outrage, and shock. Shame shuddered through him at the idea of another witnessing his weakness. His lips felt like rubber when he opened his mouth. Nothing came out at first. It was as though his body instinctively denied putting into words the memory—a memory that he regularly tried to avoid as ritualistically as the recollection of his bloodthirsty attack on the Iniskium.

  The memory of what he’d done to Christina.

  She’d been more than willing on that afternoon so long ago.
He’d been deeply in contact with her unconscious mind. But maybe if she’d been fully aware of what he was, she wouldn’t have agreed.

  She’d been twenty-one years old when he’d first seen her…first experienced her. She’d been fresh out of college and interviewing for a case manager position at LifeLine. He’d been dropping off a check at the downtown facility. He’d just left the office of the president of LifeLine when he saw Christina being led down the hallway by Michael Moorhead, one of the managers.

  He’d stared in blank shock as color infused his gray world in a vivid flash. For a blinding, senseless moment, he’d become a savage, primitive creature, like the one who had attacked the Iniskium.

  He’d known only a vast hunger, a wounding need.

  Then he’d blinked and his bloodlust had cleared. He’d watched Christina walk down that hallway, wearing a conservative gray suit, her vitessence sparking around her at incredible speed. She drew him like a powerful magnet. He’d fallen back against the wall in the empty hallway when he realized he’d been heading toward the room where she’d disappeared with Michael Moorhead. To do what, exactly? Attack her while she was in the midst of an interview? he’d thought incredulously.

  For almost six centuries he’d tamed his bloodlust and repented for his sins, only to have his control melt to mist at the sight of a young woman.

  He’d struggled against his need for nearly a month. But, in the end, he’d lost his battle.

  How could he not crave the very essence of life when he was one of the walking dead?

  Kavya watched him intently. Saint clamped his eyes shut, wishing he could shut the powerful Magian out of his mind, wishing he could purge the memory altogether.

  But, of course, he would never have done that, because despite his shame, despite the horror of what he’d done, he clung to the beauty of the recollection of seducing Christina.

  He knew he’d never let that memory go.

  Twelve years ago

  He only saw vibrant color when Christina was present, so Saint knew for the first time in his life why they’d named the huge flowers after the blazing sun that gave life to this planet—sunflowers.

  His skin warmed under the yellow star’s rays—another new experience. It’d never imparted its enlivening heat before. He’d never been cold, like someone might imagine a soulless creature. But he’d certainly never known the comforting kiss of the sun until Christina entered his sterile, shadowed world.

  He approached her still figure silently. He’d watched over her for the past month, seen her coming and going from her Lakeview apartment, observed her from a distance as she waited for the “L” train to take her to work, or to meet a friend for a drink or dinner. He’d seen her with a dark-haired, good-looking young man who Saint instinctively didn’t trust. By then, he understood that Christina’s brilliant, powerful vitessence conferred her with special powers, including the ability to read other peoples’ minds.

  He couldn’t comprehend why she refused to see the falseness behind the man’s white-toothed smiles.

  She was sleeping with him. He easily caught her scent on the man—Rick was what she called him—when he left her apartment after spending the night there. The odor of her arousal intertwining with the cocky human’s odor nearly sent him into an animalistic rage every time he smelled it. Not a bloodlust, but a fury of violence. He shook with a need to share his profound pain with Rick.

  He’d refrained, and eventually nature had set things to right. Christina’s luminous smiles were less and less in evidence when she was with Rick. They fought once in front of a restaurant, Christina accusing Rick of sleeping with a woman who they’d unexpectedly encountered while dining. Rick had denied it, but Christina’s telepathic powers were no longer dulled by the flush of first infatuation.

  Saint had watched over her afterwards as she’d taken the “L” and walked home alone. He’d gotten a savage satisfaction from hearing her tell Rick to go to hell and never come back. But Saint’d become tense and restless as he watched her solitary figure walking down the darkened street, her vitessence still brilliant, but muted.

  It hurt, seeing her sad. Hurt like when he considered the Iniskium villagers he’d wantonly murdered before he understood his nature, pained him like when he’d considered damning the few Iniskium, his trusted companions and friends, to a life of near immortality, but also emptiness and strife. Saint had responded in the only way he knew, ceaselessly trying to atone for his sins by helping those in need.

  He wanted to make it up to Christina, too, wanted to make her smile again…somehow.

  He’d stayed outside her apartment all night in his wolf form, hidden by the shadows of a tree. His gaze never left the window he’d learned was her bedroom. The next morning, she’d left, carrying a beach bag, looking pale and exhausted, as if she’d slept fitfully, if at all.

  He’d followed her to Lincoln Park, to the outdoor gardens of the arboretum. She’d been the only occupant in the thousand-square-foot clearing surrounded by thick, seven-foot-tall hedges, trees and prairie-growth perennials. With his preternatural hearing, Saint could hear two males tossing a Frisbee in the near vicinity, and farther off, several people having a picnic. But Christina and he might have been the only two creatures on the entire planet when he approached her sleeping form.

  His cock felt leaden and heavy as he stared down at her. The sunflowers and lavender danced in the soft breeze, creating a moving, colorful background that mimicked her vibrant lifeforce.

  He’d never been this close to her before. Her face looked young and innocent in sleep. His gaze traced her flushed cheeks, lush, sweet mouth, the light sprinkling of freckles on her nose. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, but a few strands flicked across her cheeks. She’d been reading a paperback before she fell into a sleep of exhaustion. The pages flipped lazily in the breeze against her relaxed fingers.

  She wore a patterned, floral sundress that tied in a halter around her neck. Her skin looked dewy and sun-kissed. Saint’s eyes lingered on the swells of her pale breasts in the V of the fabric. The thought of her curving, succulent flesh filling his hands, the satin of her skin sliding along his cheek and lips, made his cock surge painfully.

  He thought he was hallucinating when her nipples suddenly pulled tight against the clinging fabric. Without telling himself to move, he rubbed his thick erection through his jeans, needing the friction to stop the sharp ache of desire.

  He burned. He’d never known a hunger like it, never imagined a need that could score you from the inside out. Looking back on the incident twelve years later, Saint realized he hadn’t been that different on that sunlit, golden day with Christina than he had been on that gray dawn when Teslar and he had attacked the Iniskium village. Both times, he’d been overwhelmed with a blinding hunger, incapable of controlling his need because it was so new to him…so raw.

  Having no experience with standing face to face with the essence of beauty, he had no ready defenses against it.

  He reached out to her with his mind, the action as instinctive and natural as a wolf calling to its mate. Wolves knew the dream world intimately. He called to her soothingly, seductively. Her lips parted and a soft moan escaped her throat. Her hips shifted and, as connected with her as Saint was at that moment, he knew she tried to get friction on her swelling sex.

  He recognized the answer to his call and came down on his hands and knees over her.

  The sounds of the two men shouting and laughing on the other side of the thick hedge didn’t faze him as he untied the halter around Christina’s neck. He was entranced. Nothing existed for him but her singular, intoxicating scent, her sparking vitessence…the soft, sweet body where he would find release from this unbearable tension soon…soon.

  But he wished he could make this last forever.

  He spoke to her while she slept, keeping her in the cocoon of the sunlit dream. Wolves often communicated using dreams, especially with their mates.

  “Do you want me
, Christina?”

  “Yes, more than anything. Who are you?”

  “A dream,” Saint replied before he kissed her parted lips.

  He lowered the fabric carefully below her breasts, going still for a moment as he stared. He suppressed a groan when his cock lurched. With his mind, he praised her beauty. Her blood sung an answer, surging hot and fast in her veins.

  He reached for the hem of her dress and brought it up to her waist. She whimpered when he drew down her tiny, white bikini underwear over her sandals. He came back over her on his hands and knees, his nostrils flaring to catch the exquisite scent of her arousal. He tossed aside his shirt, letting the warm summer sun beat down on his skin, and spread Christina’s pale thighs. He could have as easily stopped himself from eating her pussy at that moment, from drowning in the sweet juices she gave him in such abundance, as he could have single-handedly changed the direction of the earth on its axis.

  She moaned and thrashed in her sleep. He stilled her hips with his hands, adamant about not being denied her delicious, vitessence-rich cream, her soul-infused juices. He drank hungrily, bringing her to climax again and again. When an object struck the hedges, Saint blinked, rising slightly out of his carnal entrancement. He heard the young man talking and laughing as he retrieved the Frisbee out of the bushes just feet away.

  Saint plunged a forefinger in and out of Christina’s sleek vagina and rubbed her clit vigorously with a stiffened tongue.

  She went rigid and shuddered as she came once again. He subtly kept her in the dream with his mind while he milked every last delicious tremor out of her body and lifted his head. He licked his lips, still hungry for her, but hurting, too.

  Hurting so much.

  The muscles of her lithesome thighs felt supple in his hands when he pushed them wide and eyed her glossy, vividly pink cunt.

  “I could drink your cream forever.” His voice was soft and low, but somehow Saint knew Christina heard him, that she focused on him, heedless of the sound of the men bantering and laughing just feet away, the muted noise of traffic in the distance, even the warm, beating rays of the sun on her skin. She’d gone entirely still except for the pulse fluttering wildly at her throat.