Wicked After Dark: 20 Steamy Paranormal Tales of Dragons, Vampires, Werewolves, Shifters, Witches, Angels, Demons, Fey, and More

by Mina Carter

He drove deep again, and suddenly her body exploded in a cascade of fireworks so powerful she felt as if her soul had been ripped from her body and thrust into the whirling firestorm that lived within him. His spirit met hers as his body bowed and a shout tore from his throat. The winds seemed to whip through their very spirits, swirling them into a world of fire and passion and light and hope. It was as if everything she'd never dared reach for had suddenly been thrust into her grasp for the taking.

  Ryland's arms tightened around her, holding her close as their bodies bowed under the strength of the climax, as if the only thing holding them together was his physical strength and sheer force of will...which meant that when his will changed, and he was forced to choose between her and Dante, there would be nothing left to hold them together. All this magic, this feeling of safety and belonging…it would all be gone.

  Tears fell from her eyes even before the orgasm released him, depositing them back into their bodies, into the reality of their situation and lives.

  * * *

  Ryland buried his face in Catherine's neck, shocked by the tremors still racking his body, by the intensity of what had happened between them. He couldn't believe he'd taken her like that. That had never been his intention. Ever. Yeah, he craved her body relentlessly, but he never would have caved to such base instinct and had sex with her, an angel of the highest order.

  But he had. He'd taken her almost violently, in the entrance of hell, on a bed made of rock, as if he thought she was nothing more than some common woman. But he hadn't been able to stop himself. The need for her had blinded him to everything else, consuming him like a raging inferno that would have destroyed him if he hadn't filled it with her.

  Scowling at himself, he rolled onto his side and tucked her closely against him, even now overwhelmed by the feel of her body against his. Her back was pressed against his chest, her hips nestled against his groin, her hair draped over his arm, her head resting on his shoulder. He clasped her wrists to her chest and draped his leg over hers, enfolding her in the shield of his body, needing to offer her protection and safety. "I'm sorry," he whispered as he brushed a kiss over her hair.

  Even as he spoke, he reached out with his preternatural senses, trying to figure out where they were in the nether-realm. The vortex could have spit them out anywhere—in one of the few hidden corners, or right in the middle of the worst parts. But when he caught the scent of wild rose, he relaxed, knowing exactly where they were. They were in one of the few pockets of protected area left over from the ancient days, places he'd sought out and found during his tenure there. Relief rushed through him, as he realized that he must have instinctively called upon his old skills of directing their trip through the vortex to land in a safe spot.

  It was damn good news for both of them that he still had his instincts, but it was also eerie to realize how close his ties to this realm still were. He was a part of this hell, and that hadn't changed.

  "Again with the apology," Catherine said wearily, drawing his attention back to her. "What is it this time? You didn't tie me up, so it can't be that."

  Ryland frowned at how shaky and vulnerable her voice sounded, and he turned her toward him, wishing he could see her face in the darkness. He knew how to get them light, but to do so, he'd have to get up, and he didn't want to let go of her, almost afraid that she would somehow disappear on him again. With her in his arms, this hell felt different, like there was a chance that he wasn't the beast he once had been.

  So, instead of getting up, he simply brushed a kiss over her forehead, and then her cheek. When he tasted the salt of her tears, he frowned. "What's wrong?"

  "You."

  He bowed his head, knowing of what she spoke. He was a monster, and she'd been victimized by it firsthand. He'd sullied her with his need and his fury. "Catherine, I should not have—"

  "No." Her fingers pressed against his lips, silencing him. "Don't say that. It was beautiful and incredible, and I don't want it soiled with some apology where you say how you didn't want to do it. Just let it be, Ryland."

  Shocked by her words, Ryland was speechless for a moment. She didn't regret it? She didn't condemn him for succumbing to the most basic male needs? "You're okay with it?"

  "Okay?" She shoved at his chest. "For heaven's sake, Ryland, try to be a little more poetic. We just made love. It was amazing. Dangerous and all sorts of stuff like that, but for what it was—" Her voice softened and she blessed him with a tender stroke across his forehead as she brushed his hair back. "It was life-giving," she whispered.

  Warmth swelled through him, and he caught her hand, pressing his lips to each knuckle. "It was," he agreed. "And I did want to do it. I've been burning for you since I first caught your scent." He tucked her more tightly against him, their legs tangled together intimately. He knew they had to get up and get moving, but for a moment, he didn't want to go anywhere. They were safe where they were, hidden in an oasis created by old faerie magic long ago.

  Catherine tapped at his arm. "I need my clothes."

  "Not yet." He nuzzled her hair, astonished by how soft it was against his face. He'd never experienced anything like this moment, with her soft, curvy body enfolded in his embrace, her scent wrapped around him, her hair tickling his face. If there was truly such a thing as peace in this world, this would be what it was like. "We're in one of the few protected areas of the nether-realm. As long as we stay here, we're hidden."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. I hid here many times before—" He stopped as a cold chill rippled across his skin again, as memories long hidden flared to life.

  Catherine squeezed his hand. "Before what?" she urged.

  He swore and rolled onto his back, resting the back of his wrist across his forehead, fighting against the memories trying to surface. Instead, he focused on Catherine, on her scent, on his mission. He was here to find Dante. He was here to salvage the Order for his leader. He was here to protect the Order's guardian angel. He had no time for shit from his past.

  "Ryland. Tell me." She scooted closer and crawled on top of him, stretching out so that her feet were resting on his shins, her elbows braced on his chest. Ryland traced her face, and could tell that she was resting her chin on her palms, comfortably ensconced on top of him.

  It was such a casual intimacy. So unfamiliar, but at the same time, there was something so right about it.

  "You couldn't even make yourself cross the threshold into the nether-realm," she said. "What happened to you here? Help me understand, so I can help you through it."

  Ryland swore and gently set her aside. He sat up and grabbed for his jeans. "We need to focus on now," he said. "We're in the southeast quadrant. Can you sense Dante's spirit from here?"

  She didn't move. "Ryland. We need to talk about this."

  Scowling he squatted in front of her. "Listen, Cat. I don't do this."

  "Do what?"

  "This." He gestured at her, at them, even though he knew she couldn't see him. "This...this..." Hell. He didn't even know how to describe what it was. "We're here on a mission. Not to do some therapy shit."

  She laughed softly. "You mean, you don't know how to have a conversation with someone about something that matters to you? You don't make love to a woman, and then hold her in your arms while you share your secrets?"

  Horror congealed in his gut, and he recoiled. "Make love? Shit, no. I've never made love in my life to anyone. I've only fu—"

  She covered his mouth again. "No, Ryland, I don't need to hear your words for describing what you've done with women in the past. What we just did was making love, so you have done it, and that's what it's like."

  He had no answer for that. He didn't even know what to say. What did a guy say to that kind of statement? Because that had been some kind of hard-core experience between them, some serious shit far and beyond anything he'd ever experienced. But making love? Jesus. Even the sound of those words sent coils of ice-cold fire through him. "Making love is a trap," he said. "Love is a trap. I do
n't do that. I'm a warrior, Cat, so don't try to make me into something I'm not." But even as he said the words, he felt an unpleasant ache in his chest, like he didn't want to say something like that to her. Not to Cat. Swearing, he ran his hand through his hair. "I mean, hell, I'm not trying to dishonor what you said. It was definitely...something...unusual that just happened between us. It's never been like that before—"

  Shit. He didn't even know what to say.

  "Hey." Catherine shoved at him, catching him off balance in his crouched position. He landed on his butt, and she leapt onto him. He caught her, and then she settled herself deeper on top of him, her hips sinking against him in a way that made his body start getting hard again. "We're about to invade the nether-realm, and my guide absolutely freaked out when he got in here. We need to deal with your mental state right now, Ryland."

  He scowled at her word choice. "I didn't freak out—"

  "Shut up for one second, and let me talk." She shifted against him, grinding her pelvis into his cock, and he began to think she was trying to distract him on purpose.

  It was working. Damn her.

  "Yeah, okay, go for it. Talk." He set his hands on her hips and adjusted her against him, so that she was in a better spot, her belly right up against his increasingly hard cock. Her teasing him was sheer pleasure, and there was no damn chance he was man enough to walk away from it.

  "So, here's the deal," she said. "Every warrior has a weakness. The only way to defeat it is to acknowledge it, and establish a plan to manage it. So, you are going to tell me what happened here before, or else I am going to disappear and go it on my own, because I can't afford to have you lose it again."

  Ryland's amusement with their unspoken sensual play dissolved. "You're not leaving me."

  "Then talk." She wiggled again, and he sucked in his breath. "You were a slave here," she said. "Tell me what happened, or we're never going to succeed in here. You may be a big, tough, badass warrior, but you've got scars from this place, Ryland, scars that are going to get us killed."

  "Fuck that. I'm fine."

  "Then why are you clawing at your neck as if there is already a collar around it?"

  Ryland realized he was scratching at the front of his throat, dragging his knuckles across his flesh as he had so many nights when he'd lain on that barren rock, trying to get himself free of his shackles. Swearing, he dropped his hand, but even when he did, he could feel the same cold sensation of heavy golden cuffs on his wrists and ankles. He clasped his arm, but it was only flesh. "I can feel them," he said.

  Catherine's fingers wrapped around his wrist, sliding beneath his hand. "There's nothing there, Ryland. You're not a slave anymore."

  He swore and released his grip on his wrist, but he could still feel the cold metal on his skin, as if it were a heavy weight locking him down. Shit. She was right, wasn't she? He knew she was. He had nearly lost his shit on the threshold, and his mind was already playing tricks on him.

  She was his guardian angel, right? So her job was to protect him. He was supposed to tell her shit like this, because that was her job. Right?

  Damn. It was time. Time to go back to hell. Time to face what he'd thought he'd left behind. But just the thought of revisiting the life he'd once endured sent tension spiraling through him.

  "Come closer." He stretched out more comfortably on his back, pulled her high on his chest, and wrapped his arms around her. "Give me peace, my angel," he whispered.

  "Always." She tucked her head under his chin and rested her cheek against him. "I'm right here."

  "Yeah, okay." Ryland took a deep breath and began his story. "I was told I was created here from the spirits of the dead," he said. "A child of darkness, bred by the female and male who rule here, Desdria, and the Dark Lord."

  "Your parents?"

  "No. Not my parents." He spat the words, refusing to even catalogue them as parents. "There was a woman who took care of me when I was little. She said...she said she was simply a servant of Desdria, but that's crap. She was my mother. I'm sure of it. I don't know how I was born, or if I was, but she..." He ground his jaw, remembering only bits and pieces of that time, the flashes of safety when she was there.

  Catherine stared at him. "Of course you had a mother. Everyone has a mother."

  "No, not everyone. Not creatures created by forces beyond life and death."

  She raised her brows. "Ryland. You're not a creature. You're a man. You're real. If you think she was your mother, she was. A child always knows."

  For a split second, something tightened in his throat at her confirmation of what he had always believed, and he had a sudden urge to wrap a lock of her hair around his fingers, grounding himself in the silkiness of the strands, in something that was pure and good. "A child is always born innocent, but I was a carrier for some unbelievable shit. They wanted to bring it out in me, so they—" He stopped, recalling that first night Desdria had come to him. "She had a burning poker in her hand," he said. "I was maybe a year old, just strong enough to survive their persuasive efforts." His stomach flexed, as if defending against the wounds inflicted so long ago, scars that he would never show to the outside world.

  Catherine stiffened. "What about your mother? She let them hurt you?"

  "Shit no. She tried to stop them, and they killed her. It was the first time I'd seen blood before. So much fucking blood. I can still hear the screams as she fought them, trying to protect me. She had no chance, but she gave her life trying." He looked at her. "I learned about protecting innocents from her," he said softly. "You give your life, at all costs. It's what you do."

  She nodded. "Your mother," she agreed. "She gave her life for you. It's what mothers do." She smiled. "You had a mom, Ryland. You're not a monster."

  "Oh, but I am, and Desdria and the Dark Lord figured out how to get it out of me. They had to inject evil into me to unleash the monster they wanted me to become, the one they knew was already inside me."

  Catherine rubbed his chest, her touch so fucking surreal he didn't even understand it. "They wanted you to become a killer, didn't they?"

  "An assassin at their command, yeah." Catherine had been inside his soul. He realized that she'd probably seen parts of him he hadn't shown anyone. "They wanted me to kill innocents, to be the enforcer of doom. I wouldn't do it." His mind shifted back to that time. "They would bring me innocents to torture, but I wouldn't do it, so they tortured me instead. They did everything they could to force me, held back only by their need to make sure they didn't actually kill me. They thought that if they hurt me badly enough, I would agree to what they wanted, but I never did. I fucking would never go down that road. I could not attack those people, those creatures. Hurting innocents is bullshit. I never lost my human form. I never became what they wanted me to be. There was no fucking way they could make me cross that line. Until—"

  He stopped. Shit. He didn't want to go there. To that night that had made him violate all that he believed in, all that he stood for.

  "Until what?" she urged gently, stroking small circles on his chest, as if to remind him that she was still there, still with him, still his guardian angel.

  Swearing, he rolled Catherine off him and sat up. He rubbed his neck, needing to feel bare flesh against his hand. There was no slave collar on him. No wrist cuffs. No ankle cuffs. He was still free. It was all simply a memory. "There was a woman," he continued. A woman? No, not just a woman. An innocent of the purest spirit. "Marie," he said. "She was one of the faeries of the nether-realm. She was a water faerie, one of the purest kinds of faeries that exists. They live here, but they're good."

  "Water faeries? Here? How can they possibly survive in so much darkness?" Catherine sounded surprised, and he didn't blame her.

  "Their purity is like water. It flows over everything, and simply washes past the taint. The water faeries are the balance that keeps the nether-realm from destroying itself with its evil. I met her once when I was hiding from the king and queen, and after that, our friendshi
p was sealed. She was so sweet and innocent, this gift of purity in this hell I was living. It was indescribable what she brought to me, showing me things I never knew existed." He smiled, recalling their past. "She was the first person I'd ever heard laugh. I freaked out when she laughed, and tried to kill the berries she was eating because I thought they were creatures that were choking her."

  Catherine laughed softly. "Protecting the innocents even when you were a boy."

  His smile faded as darkness settled in his bones. "I failed her," he snapped out bitterly. Restless, he stood up, no longer wanting the darkness.

  He strode across the floor to the wall and felt around until he found the opening he remembered. He shoved his hand past hundreds of years of dirt and grime, and found the emerald that Marie had showed him. He pulled it out and held it in his palms. It began to glow instantly, filling their cavern with green light. The shadows were cast back, and a beautiful green glow radiated through the area.

  He set it back inside the hole, but it continued to glow, and would not fade until they left.

  "How did you fail her?" Catherine was on her side, propped up on her elbow, her body gloriously naked and swathed in the faint emerald light. Her breasts were petite perfection, her hips a tantalizing curve, her legs an endless gift of ecstasy. And her eyes...that same incredible blue, so vibrant that they held their color even in the green light. She was watching him intently, no judgment or fear on her beautiful face.

  Swearing, Ryland fell to his knees before her, in awe of what she was. "She was like you," he said softly, tracing his fingers along her jaw. "She brought something into my life that I didn't understand, but I knew it was special. It was relief. Hope. Beauty. A glimpse into the truth that all was not the same as what I was living. She was my salvation. She gave me the strength to endure everything the Dark Lord and Desdria did to me. She saw in me things I didn't see and believed I could defeat the two of them and escape from their grasp. She was my mentor, even though she was just a girl my own age."

  Catherine smiled, but there was a sadness in her eyes that he didn't understand. "You loved her," she said.