The Sentinel Keeper (Forest Series)

by Sarah Kent

  CHAPTER 8

  Melchior knew he was past the point of no return the second she had crawled up his chest and arched her flushed pink nipple into his mouth. The taste of them drove him wild, fresh and clean like a mountain spring. He wanted to taste it forever.

  He had not meant this to happen when he had brought her back to his room fast asleep and lain her on his bed. But then she had started thrashing on the bed, sweat pouring down her body. He had acted with instinct. He hadn’t meant to tap into her dream; it was a power he rarely used. But what he saw had shocked him to his core. Niyan. The Dark Lord.

  He had tried to wake her. But that was ancient history the second her robe had parted and he has seen that expanse of creamy flesh. He should have acted sooner and forced her to wake. But a very male part of him had not wanted her to stop. Had prayed for her to continue. He had seen in the forest that she had a wildness to her, a raw power that made her unique and unlike any other female he had encountered.

  Gods the feel of her mouth on his cock was more than he could bear. He could no sooner stop now than he could hold back the tides.

  Every part of him wanted to take her now. To plunge into her and have her – his curse be damned. He was so close to losing it. He closed his eyes his body screaming with the need to release as her mouth moved over him faster now. In another second it would all be over. But he needed to taste her first. A deep primal male need in him could not allow himself to be taken by a female. He wanted to make her scream him name and wanted to feel her taste on his lips.

  With a roar he pushed himself up and flipped her over onto her back.

  Her eyes were still closed and he knew she was still in a half-sleep, not fully conscious of what she was doing. He noticed the deep rings of exhaustion under her eyes. He knew he should end this now. He should just walk away.

  But he would not. He would end this tonight once he had slaked his hunger for her.

  Her incredible body was laid out before him. On his bed. Gods he had almost come as she had taken him into her mouth.

  Ripping off the remainder of her gown he pressed her back into the bed. Her body was laid bare before him. It was everything he had imagined and more. Lean and elegant, she arched off the bed with a sob towards him. Her legs were thrashing beneath him and he had to lift himself away from her, he was so ready to explode.

  He tore his glance away from her red nipples and moved it lower where just a tiny pair of silk panties covered her sex. But he knew she was slick and wet for him. With a growl he slipped a finger down and slipped it under the silk and rubbed against her bud.

  He needed to get his mouth on her now.

  With a hiss he moved the scrap of fabric aside and lowered his mouth against her. His tongue flicked and lapped at her bud. She arched off the bed and came instantly, her slick flesh convulsing against his mouth. He moved his tongue against her, lapping up the taste of her. It was like the sweetest nectar he had ever tasted. He slipped his thumb deep inside her and felt the tremors run, contracting on his finger as she sobbed. His name.

  Gods the sound of it on her breath almost stopped him. It was like a whisper on the wind and he felt a tight fisting in his chest before he quickly shoved it aside. He lapped at her, driving her higher and taking the sweet taste of her deep into his mouth. She was like a wild creature below him as she bucked against him as he slipped another finger deep inside her. Her head thrashed against the pillow as with a deep male growl of pleasure, Melchior stroked her dripping flesh.

  He was close to bursting. He needed to get inside her, bury his aching cock so deep that she would scream his name again and again.

  But he could not. He could not have her tonight. Not like that.

  For if he did enter her, he could never have her again. That was his curse from the Gods. He could have a female, but only once. That was the rule the gods had set on him. Only once had he tried to defy them, and he had taken a woman again. The pain had been so intense and indescribable he had been unable to move for weeks as he recovered. But her fate had been worse. She too had burned, but her burns had taken her life. It was a punishment so cruel that it had taken him decades before he had taken a woman again. And then he touched them only once ever. He had never tried it again.

  He knew if he took Beth now, it would be his first and last time with her.

  And he was not ready to lose her. Not yet.

  Not yet, he breathed against her desperate heat.

  ‘Come for me again,’ he ground out as he took his cock in his own hand.

  When she came this time she screamed, a high desperate sound that filled his head and raced through his blood. He fisted himself and pumped his sex. His hand was so tight he felt his entire body buck with the pain of it. His release hit him like a blow as he roared, pumping his seed into the sheets in an explosion that rocked him to his very soul. He strained, his head thrown back to the heavens that had deserted him as wave after wave threatened to drown him.

  It felt like an eternity before the roar in his blood slowed and the blood settled in his head. He righted his pants and stood up. After he had splashed his face with cold water and brought his heartbeat down to a gallop he walked back into the room.

  Beth was sitting straight up in the bed, her eyes wide as she looked at him.

  CHAPTER 9

  Beth knew it had just been a dream but it didn’t feel like it. It felt very real, both the tremors still moving up her body, and the massive scarred warrior staring at her through the dark. But all her dreams felt real She let out a shaken breath. She was lying on a massive bed in the centre of a room; her entire body was still languid coping with the most mind-shattering dream orgasm of her life. If it wasn’t bad enough that she had let him shake her down in the forest, she had gone and had the most erotic dream of her life about him.

  Beth tried to shake the lethargy and clear her head.

  “Got a light in here?” Beth asked, her voice sounding shaky to her own ears.

  A light flared in the distance, then another, bathing the room in a soft gold glow.

  Beth let out a slow, shaky breath, lifting her hand to run her fingers through her hair.

  “There are so many things wrong about this situation that I don’t even know where to start,” she said.

  She fought her a wave of embarrassment as she pushed herself up, wrapped herself in a sheet and she walked towards him. It took all of her courage but she lifted her head and looked him straight in the eyes.

  “Clearly you kidnapped me from my hotel room. And I know you stole my phone. But did we just…”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “… sleep together?”

  She heard Melchior make a noise that sounded like a choke. Then he shook his head, his eyes narrow and unreadable as he watched her.

  Beth breathed out, eyeing him with suspicion. Then she remembered the start of the dream, her nightly ritual with the deathbringer. She started.

  “You… You were there. How?” Without thinking she lifted her hand and touched his face, her fingers tracing a livid scar that cut his cheek. Beth gasped as he recoiled, and she snatched her hand back. But he was faster than her, his hand shooting out to imprison her hand in his own.

  He leaned forward, his green eyes boring into her.

  He had not said a word. Then the one he spoke sent a shiver down her spine.

  “You’re a Dreamwalker.”

  Beth jolted, her heart pounding. That word meant something. She could feel it deep in her veins, like a distant drumbeat that had started up.

  “You heard what he said in my dreams?”

  Melchior’s stare was cold.

  “I heard.”

  Her face was flushed and she could feel her blood racing.

  “What does it mean?” she asked.

  Melchior’s eyes narrowed.

  “You don’t know” he frowned.

  Beth shook her head.

  With a curse Melchior turned, putting distance between them. He walked to t
he window.

  “You really don’t know what you are?”

  “Tell me,” she demanded. “Tell me what that means. What am I?”

  Melchior turned back to her and she had to catch her breath as the she saw the light catch his face. He was incredible. Standing in just a pair of linen pants he was tall beyond measure and exuding a raw power that was daunting. She wanted to touch him, run her fingers down his chest and place her head by his heart. But it was his eyes that she had seen before in her dreams. Not for many years and the memories were so far away she could not quite grasp in.

  He took a step forward towards her and his eyes narrowed. Then he spoke again.

  “I will tell you what you are,” he said in a slow measured voice, “once you tell me who Jackson is, and why you were spying in our forest.”

  Jackson? Beth almost laughed. But the cold wave coming off him stopped her. She knew a bargaining chip when she saw one. He was deadly serious. Hell, if she didn’t know better she would think he was jealous.

  Before she could answer there was a knock at the door.

  “Mel, need you here.” a deep male voice. “We have a visitor. In the Cathedral.”

  Beth heard Melchior curse and turn away.

  “I need to go now,” he said. “I won’t be long. This is my room and I want you to stay here.” Beth bristled at the command of the man who was clearly used to having his orders obeyed.

  The next second a blinding flash on light filled the room, and Melchior was gone. One second he was there, standing in front of her, and the next there was nothing but air.

  Beth sat down on the bed with a thud.

  Total nutcase, she thought. Jackson has seen it coming. Delusional, paranoid and totally balmy.

  Strange then that the last few hours had felt more real than the last 26 years of her empty life had.

  CHAPTER 10

  Three of his warriors sat before him in the massive underground cathedral waiting for him as if they were facing an execution. His.

  Blane, Aslan and Shara sat on one side of the long dais, watching him with eyes downcast. On the far side of the sat the Priest.

  Oh hell, what was he doing here?

  Clearly he was being ambushed by the sycophantic suck-job of the Priest.

  Defiant as always, Melchior let the shirt he was about to pull over his naked torso drop to the floor as he stalked across the floor and took his seat at the head of the table in just his pants. He felt the Priest recoil with revulsion, but he caught a glimpse of Aslan suppressing a grin. All three of them were wearing their crimson ceremonial robes, looking solemn with their eyes cast down at the table. He was half naked.

  His eyes flicked over to his crew. They were watching him. He knew that each one of them may have been born from immortals, but on this plane and in his army they were armed and lethal. Every single one of them would kill for him. But in his communion with the Gods, Melchior knew he stood alone. He alone had been tasked by the Gods to eke out his punishment alone for an eternity. None of them could take his place there.

  His crime had been a stupid one. Fuelled with the exuberance of youth he had wooed and bedded Alabaster the daughter of the God of Wind. He had fallen hard for the delicate blonde beauty and made it his life’s mission to get her naked. But the plan had backfired. She had fallen so deeply in love with him that she had told her father of her love, and her desire to wed the warrior. Enraged and shamed, her father had petitioned to the Gods and had Melchior thrown into a cell. Fuelled by desperate grief, the love struck Alabaster had done the unthinkable – she had cast herself into the pit of Fire and died and immortal death. The shock of her death had rocked the very foundations of the realm. Any hope of pardon was gone and Melchior faced certain death. His grief and guilt over her death was so deep that his own death had felt like a fitting punishment. He hadn’t loved the girl, it had just been a reckless game to him, but the result had been eternal and irreversible.

  But the Gods had not deemed death not to be his fate. Instead they had scored his face with the mark of shame and had made him Warrior King to guard the Sentinel alone, never to have another mate to share his life. IF he did the fire that had taken Alabaster’s life would claim the woman he had taken twice. So he had slaked his lust on hundreds of nameless females, all one-hit wonders. Night after night a different one until he could bear it no more. No more empty releases. He had not touched a female for many decades now. Until her.

  Never before had the bitterness of his punishment burned him so, but tonight for the first time in aeons his heart ached. The woman up in his room was different. Beth. The thought of her stirred uneasy feelings in him. He was damned if he would let them see that. He shut his thoughts down. In this place they could see everything.

  “My Lord”

  The Priest stood up as his voice carried across the great space. It carried up into the dark endless roof that lifted straight from earth and into the heavens directly. If Melchior had a choice he would have blasted it into a pile of rubble.

  “My Lord there is talk up above that you have a woman in your midst.”

  Melchior’s blood stopped, if only for a second before he will an expression of distain back on this face.

  “There is talk that she is a Dreamwalker.”

  The word fell like a bomb in the cathedral. Melchior knew he could show no reaction if he was even to stand a chance with him. He nodded, his eyes blank as he stared at the Priest.

  “We would like to speak with her,” the red eyes sparked at him.

  Melchior gritted his teeth. He was Lord over his dominion, but the Priest came from the Gods. He was his direct line and to risk their wrath was more than he dared. A muscle in his jaw was pulsing as he fought for control. He jerked his body into a low bow. It almost made him sick.

  “She is in my quarters.”

  He turned to Blane.

  “Bring her here.”

  Blane nodded and flashed out of the cathedral in a low rumble. Seconds later he was back, this time beside Melchior.

  His eyes were low as he moved closer and cleared his throat. His voice was low.

  “Your chamber is empty my lord. She is not there, nor is she in the settlement. It seems she has left.”

  Perhaps Blane was lying for him, giving him a reprieve, a chance to think up a reason to send the Priest away. But Blane could not meet his eye and he knew he spoke the truth.

  The Priest sucked in his cheeks, then his calm demeanor changed. He rose to his feet, rising to his full seven feet of height. His robe billowed out behind him as his voice rose to a shriek as he turned on Melchior.

  “Gone. How could you allow this Warrior King? How do you know she is not loyal to the Dark Lord? What damnation has she brought upon you? Upon all of us?”

  Melchior knew the accusation was true. He had made a lethal mistake. He had been so distracted by his own base animal desires that he had failed to think things through.

  Beth was a Dreamwalker and Dreamwalkers were rare creatures. The females could enter anyone’s dreams and command their actions. But they had a fatal weakness. The Dark Lord Niyan too possessed this rare gift and for centuries he had used Dreamwalkers to find the Priests and lead him to them. Then he had killed both the Priest and the Dreamwalker. There had been none know to be alive for almost fifty years now.

  “What have you done?” the Priest’s scream filled the room. That was what Melchior hated about the Gods, all drama and no action. It was up to him to sort things out.

  “Get a grip,” he said, then cocked his upper body into the parody of a bow. He could see Priest’s eyes bug out. “I will find her and bring her to you,” he said.

  Melchior looked around at the hard faces of his men. He chose the fastest.

  “Find her Blane,” he said. “Before the Dark Lord does.”

  But even as Blane left the room in a flash, Melchior let his powers loose to roam across the forest. Every tree and leaf was his to command and he could feel her. She was not far
and she was running.

  Beth had run from him the second he had found out what she was. Her actions condemned her in front of his army, and the Priest. But he had seen her very real confusion and a deeply buried part of him had felt her innocence. She was going to bring the Dark Lord here, but Melchior truly believed she did not know that.

  Melchior knew that the Priest and the Gods were watching him. They all knew the punishment for her crime. He had dealt it to warriors a hundred times. He swallowed hard. He willed his body to stand still as he waited. He would not be the one to bring her back, even if he could feel exactly where she was. He would not move.