by Reid, Stacy
He kissed her because he had to. Framing her face with his hands, he took possession of her mouth. He was without mercy as he slanted his lips over hers. A broken cry of need escaped her as she responded with wantonness. He savored the taste of her—hot, exotic, the promise of wet, fiery passion. His thoughts spilled to her through their link, of him splitting her wide, and her riding his tongue, soaking her pussy with anticipation before he claimed her. He wanted everything about her imprinted on his soul, so he would forever remember the taste and feel of her. His mind was merged deeply in hers, feeding off her pleasure, heightening it as she intensified his.
The scent of her arousal began to intoxicate him, to fill his senses with tormented desires that could not be slaked now. She pulled her lips from his and pressed her forehead against his chest. “You must stop kissing me.”
He could easily smell her scent calling to him with her readiness. The smell of her arousal was like a dagger to his gut. So why the resistance? “Why?”
“I do not need to give a reason,” she murmured and pushing away from him. I cannot think when you touch me.
He caught the edges of her thoughts before she pulled from their connection.
“I can smell your arousal. I can hear your heart beating for me.”
She faltered into absolute stillness, her eyes widened. “You can smell me?” she croaked, her entire body flushing a becoming pink.
“Yes.”
“You smell like fire and sweetness, and my mouth waters for a taste of you.”
He pushed the image at her, of him before her on his knees, her pussy on his tongue as he lapped at her wet folds. His mate blushed even more. Before she could reply, he took her into the shadows and into his chambers on the fifth floor of the castle. They spilled into the room, and she glanced around dazedly.
“Your speed rivals those who have the skill of teleportation on my world. You are very impressive Lachlan Ravenswood. And this is a beautiful chamber.”
She moved away from him, striving to appear unconcerned but he could see the fine trembling along her elegant spine. Nervousness flowed through their connection, and he sensed she was desperately fighting to deny the arousal thrumming through her body. She craved him, even if she did not understand why, and the awareness filled him with heady satisfaction. The scent of her wetness and spice had his cock hardening on a pleasurable pulse.
“I must meet with my king. I have delayed enough. When I took the witch in the shadows, I also collected the bags you had packed. They are on the bed.”
She spun around to face him. “I thought…” Her eyes glowed with something dark and mysterious.
He could barely breathe with wanting, but how he wanted to take his mate could not be done in a few minutes or an hour. The night would be theirs when he claimed her. He moved with speed behind her and allowed his hands to settle at her hips, his fingers curling over her fragile bones lightly. “I will return soon.”
Her lips parted, but he stepped into the shadow space and roiled with the darkness to enter the council room where he sensed Gidon, Drac, and Talon—the men Lachlan respected and considered his closest friends. He stepped from the shadows, and his king lifted his attention from the scrolls he’d been analyzing.
“You have joined us at last, Lachlan,” Gidon said striding toward him. “It was not like you to drop visitors at our feet and disappear before we got the chance to—”
His king faltered, violence settling on his face like a second skin, the tattoos of his three-headed demon beast—the Cerberus—shifting on his forearms and under his raven black undershirt.
Without his mate’s presence, without touching her mind, darkness blossomed through Lachlan as the anchor to his sanity melted away.
“You have bonded,” Talon said, rising from the chair he’d been seated in with untamed grace. He moved closer, his piercing green eyes watchful and wary. “How did this happen, my friend? I know of your vows made in fire and ice that you would not allow your beast in your life.”
Drac lowered his goblet carefully, and stood, canting his head to the side. “What happened?” He asked, his tone devoid of all emotions.
Lachlan could sense the stirring monster in his friend, but Lachlan did not shift his gaze away from his King. The immense pleasure of Lachlan’s darkness sang through his veins, and he relished in it, the bloodletter in Lachlan surging to life on a violent wave.
Gidon stepped forward, the tattoo on his skin rippling to life, menace covering him like an entity.. They stood only a foot apart, and darkness slid against darkness. Lachlan slammed his closed fist across his chest in salute. But it was the demon beast within his king whom he saluted, for its well of power was unfathomable and crackling in the air with a blatant challenge.
“What are you?” Gidon asked, the question pulling Drac and Talon to his side, a wall of protective power.
Lachlan looked down at his body with a brief, humorless smile. Their flat, lethal gazes slid over him, noting the changes in his body, the claws of his hands, the tattoo of his monster, and the changes to his eyes.
“You have no shield,” Talon said, eyes flaring in shock. Tiny embers smoldered in the depths of Talon’s eyes as his beast stirred.
“I am what I am,” Lachlan said, unable to prevent the dark rumble of menace in his voice.
His friends watched him, their expressions blanked, but he could feel the coiled readiness and the stirrings of their demons. He inhaled deeply, feeling a queer sense of belonging he’d never felt before.
“You are not a Senji,” Gidon said, his silver eyes piercing and calculating.
“I am not lost to the monster.” He was the monster.
“And your loyalty?” Drac demanded, his eyes cold and flat.
Lachlan slammed his fist once again across his chest. “To Remelius, then and now.”
Black chakra burst from Gidon and settled on his body like a second skin, as the demon in him reacted to Lachlan’s vow.
“And who is Remelius?” Talon snarled.
Gidon stepped forward and held out his forearm which Lachlan clasped.
“My demon,” his king said, his voice a brutal throb of power and savagery as he and his beast accorded. “Hail, Orochi, high king of the serpents.”
Something inside him contracted to hear his other name on the lips of his king. Talon sent Gidon a sharp assessing look as their king acknowledged the demon bonded within Lachlan, for it hinted of power and knowledge they’d not known their king and friend possessed.
Lachlan glanced at Drac and said, “And to you Abaddon, hail.” Speaking directly to the beast buried in Drac El Kyn. Immediately the tattoo on his skin—the fearsome winged Dracan shifted, its serpentine eyes opening, and darkness beheld darkness.
Talon had stepped back. “What are you?” his voice was more curious than wary, but Lachlan could sense the rising cruelty in Talon as he shifted the hold he had on his beast. “We do not know the name origins of demon names,” Talon continued. “How do you know it?”
Another wave of power crested through Lachlan. “I am what I am.” He met his King’s eyes unflinchingly. “My loyalty is yours then and now, Remelius, and Gidon…” Memories washed through Lachlan of running through the snow of the high mountains of the Darkage, training together and honing their taijui skills, and the many nights they had dined together and spoken of the many ways in which they could lift their people to prosperity and peace. The darkness seeded through his bones and blood tried to bury the memories of how his friend had fought with him atop a mountain coated in black ice as Lachlan tried to find his sanity. But they roiled through his mind, anchoring him, and reminding him of the love and respect he had for his king. “And you Gidon will always have my friendship and loyalty.”
That seemed to satisfy Gidon for he nodded, a smile curving his lips, his eyes forever filled with cunning glinting with an odd sort of satisfaction. And Talon’s malice receded.
“Come, let’s break bread, drink wine, and you tell me
of the witch Amirah and the Serangite Kala you dumped on us. They were given a chamber each with servants to wait upon them. The Serangite watches us with fear and refuses to speak. The witch is with child, and I can sense the need in her to flee from us, and I can also feel the power in the child. Its origin is of darkness.”
“I believe the father of her child is the hunter.”
Gidon faltered, shadows crossing his face. “And she is unclaimed by him?”
“They may not be mated.” While rare, it was possible for non-mated Darkans to breed with each other, and even others not of their kind. “They met at the Taryllion Inn, and somehow became lovers.”
“Curious,” Talon said. “The hunter is not known to allow anyone close.”
For he was an abomination to some of their people, hated by his own kind for possessing two monsters within him, and a force only a few could reckon with. The hunter gave his loyalty to Gidon, uncaring to connect or blend with the society who had cast him aside as a fledgling, and it was for that reason he was the leader of the cadre of five whose sole job was to hunt and kill those Darkans taken over by their demons, the Senjis.
“It is interesting she got close enough for a bedding,” Drac drawled, falling into step beside Gidon as they flowed from the chamber and out into the hallway.
“I will send word to him that she is here,” Gidon said, sliding with the shadows, traveling to a high balcony overlooking his kingdom.
They followed, and Lachlan moved to stand beside his king, but not too close. A warning still hummed beneath his skin, and the darkness in him stretched, burning the memories away, inviting him to partake in murder and mayhem.
As if Gidon sensed the rising demon in Lachlan, his king shifted to face him, and merciless silver eyes ensnared Lachlan.
“Much has happened in the few weeks you’ve been gone. We’ve learned Emperor Khan is working tirelessly to prevent the Nurian King from consolidating any more power. The Emperor sees Nuria as a threat, and Darkans working with him attacked Nuria. In her fight to save the king, it was revealed Tehdra El Kyn is his mate. We have received a formal declaration from King Ajali claiming her as his consort only a few hours past.” Unholy amusement glinted in Gidon’s eyes. “He found it fit to point out in his missives that he considered all Darkans but Tehdra enemies of his realm and trading between our borders will remain closed.”
King Ajali had been a powerful stumbling block in Gidon’s vision of changing their kingdom’s wealth and fostering trade with other realms to enhance the prosperity of the Darkage which had seen no economic growth in centuries. A stain of treachery followed their people, and they were reviled. Gidon planned to show the other realms they were more than their beasts and the merciless reputation that accompanied them. And a large part of his plan was contingent on presenting their people as rational beings who desired peace and wealth like the other kingdoms.
But the prejudice of the other kingdoms was so entrenched, they could not be told this, they had to be shown Darkans were people who loved and laughed with families too. And Gidon vowed to show them that side of his people.
Lachlan peered over the jungle like courtyard below. Great torches scattered about keeping the darkness at bay and washing the balcony where they stood in white light. The air seemed crisp and fresh, the night a cool blanket. A child’s joyous, and unfettered laughter rode on the air, pulling a curious smile to Lachlan’s lips. A young boy played with a kruwak, a carnivorous bird, whose claws rivaled Lachlan’s own. What would it be like to see his mate’s belly swollen with their child? Something inside his chest twisted, and unfamiliar sensations poured through him. They felt odd, as if they weakened him, for his heart raced in a manner not felt in centuries. “Are we certain King Ajali and Tehdra have mated?” Lachlan asked.
“Despite how strange it might seem to us, their mating is absolute,” Drac drawled, leaning his hip against the balcony stone edge. “My princess and I were in Nuria ourselves only a few hours past, she said she felt the love the King had for Tehdra, and I witnessed King Ajali’s reluctance to bring her any harm.”
Lachlan considered him. “In our history, we’ve never seen Darkans finding their mates with others not of our kind.”
“And now we’ve got two,” Talon said, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Our elders are still researching the archives, trying to figure out what changes we can expect from the bonding in the non Darkans.”
Three, Lachlan said silently, thinking of his woman in the heated cavern waters. How badly he’d wanted to join her. The need to slake his desire in her body was all-consuming, and it had taken every discipline and control he’d learned over the centuries to not take her in the caves. At times, her thoughts spilled over to him even when she tried to keep him out. She thought of him carnally, of him taking her with a tenderness that was foreign to the violence stamped in his bones. Yet she made him want to offer it to her, to strip her naked and worship her with his tongue.
He glanced down at the wickedly curved claws prodding from his nails. He would rip her to shreds touching her with hands like these. He had been indelibly altered. His beast wasn’t a taunting voice in his head, a chakra that he had to be careful in how much power he allowed. He and his monster were one in the truest sense, their chakras now inseparable in a manner Lachlan knew no other in their history had ever experienced before.
He tilted his head to the sky, unfathomably at a loss what to do with his all too fragile mate. A large gheelle, with iridescent green wings, flew overhead, echoing a fierce cry through the valley as it hunted.
“I’ve learned much in the Empire. The Emperor had the lexicon of our beasts’ origins and the various powers they manifested. Someone took it from our archives and handed it to him. For a brief time, I was locked in the dungeon, and three of our people were also there. They were young Darkans unable to fight against someone as ruthless and powerful as the emperor and his army. He has tortured our people without fear of reprisal. He is hiding his vile actions behind your vision of not starting your reign with slaughter and war.”
“The Kingmaker has promised our kingdom my assassination is inevitable, and he has someone waiting to replace me. I will not anticipate the coming of the kingmaker. I will hunt him,” Gidon murmured, savagery flowering through his chakra.
Lachlan lowered his eyes to Gidon. The Kingmaker was a legend within the seven kingdoms, his identity a mystery, with no recorded pictures of him in their vast archives, yet his existence was undisputed. Whenever he stirred, the terror and bloodshed that generally bathe kingdoms were unmatched. He was lauded in all Amagarie, and it was rumored that the revolution that had nearly decimated Caelum—the kingdom of water—centuries ago, was because the kingmaker had helped Farron Irsa become king.
“Is this possible?” Lachlan demanded.
“Our friend has not been idle while you’ve been on your mission,” Drac said, the monster in him humming to life. “It is rumored the kingmaker has a secret, one he would burn all the realms to protect for if this secret were uncovered, it would be the key to bring him to heel.”
He could feel the dark hunger stirred through Gidon at the thrill of hunting something as dangerous as the kingmaker.
“What is it?”
Gidon’s lips curved. “A daughter.” His voice was a rumble of power and something shockingly carnal and predatory. “The rumor my Tensuri has uncovered is that the kingmaker has a daughter whom he values more than anything else. Her name is Sabine.”
And if the King’s Tensuri had unearthed it, the information was untainted, his team of six were the most merciless female warriors of their realm, their loyalty absolute, their life force bonded to him in eternal servitude. A choice they willingly entered, but whatever fate befell their king, they would also partake. Even now they were in the shadows, a protective force the enemy would have to reckon with if his Archdukes should fall in the bid to unearth him from his throne.
A burst of wind vibrated on the air, and Princess Saieke ap
peared on the high balcony. She rushed toward Lachlan and gripped his hands. Her eyes, the bluest he’d ever seen filled with tears, but her lips laughed, the sound enchanting with its happiness.
The menacing shadow in the corner smiled as he absorbed his woman’s happiness. With her gentle femininity and iron-strong will, Princess Saieke was the perfect mate for the ruthless Drac El Kyn. “I cannot repay the service you have done me today Lachlan. My mind has finally eased that my Queen’s Blades have been found alive. I’ve administered the healing elixir, and they are well. Kamu and Thyon will return to Boreas and their families soon, and it is because of you.”
“It was my honor to liberate them for you, I trust you will now stop your moping.”
Grinning she pulled him into a fierce hug, evidently choosing not to comment on his altered appearance. Possibly a difficult thing for her to do. When he’d just met the princess one of the things he’d admired was her fierce inquisitive nature and kindness.
Something stirred in his mind. “There is a woman in your arms, Lachlan Ravenswood.”
He stilled at the possessive bite in his mate’s voice. Then he smiled, and his mate’s rueful laughter brushed against their thread with intimate softness.
Princess Saieke sent him a curious frown before flashing with a burst of speed into the haven of her mate’s arms. Drac cupped her cheeks and kissed her with unabashed hunger, uncaring of their audience. With a breathless laugh, she pulled away, curving more into his side, and faced them. “Princess Kala allowed me into her chamber. We spoke for a few minutes, and she is wonderful. I declare we shall be great friends. I believe she was relieved a non Darkan lived at the castle. She asked of her sister?” Saieke said with a pointed stare at Lachlan.
Everyone shifted their regards to him and waited.
Before he could proffer a reply, the walls of the castle shook as a piercing sound trumpeted over the hills from a great distance. In unison, it appeared as if all the winged creatures of the surrounding jungles took flight, reacting to the sonic waves booming across the sky in a shocking show of power, the message heralding the sound waves no one had anticipated. At least not for months, or possibly years to come.
