It was hard though.
She stopped on the stairs as her legs weakened and wobbled beneath her, the elf’s pain so strong that it crashed over her, threatening to send her to her knees. She shot her hands out on both sides, pressing them into the damp walls in the narrow stairwell, and breathed through it.
When her heart had steadied again and her instincts no longer ruled her, she pressed forwards, prepared to face what awaited her and do all she could to stop the elf’s suffering.
Taryn took the remaining few steps down to the dungeon and turned her head to her right, fixing her focus straight on the cell beside her.
On the elf male in the middle of it, stripped bare and snarling as he savagely fed from a fae female.
Gods, she had been wrong.
She wasn’t prepared at all.
Her breath left her in a rasping rush and she staggered backwards, her bottom hitting the wall.
The elf lifted his head and her knees almost gave out. Blood and gore drenched the lower half of his face and coated his chest, and his fangs were long white daggers between crimson lips as he stared at her, a glassy quality to his violet eyes as they leaped straight to her.
He growled and looked away from her, still for a moment, a heartbeat of time that made her want to reach out to him and tell him to stop, sure that she could get through to him even when he was so far gone, lost to the darkness she could feel in him.
He sank his fangs back into the female another second later, a feral snarl peeling from his lips as he bit her. She cried out, the sound feeble and weak now, and Taryn shifted her focus to her. Her pulse was weak.
The elf was going to kill her if Taryn didn’t do something.
She dragged her eyes away from the male and turned towards the bend in the corridor that would lead her around to where her brother stood in front of the elf’s cell. The female screamed again, a gurgled sound that sent a cold wave through Taryn. Her vision distorted and she gripped the wall for support, breathing hard and fast again as memories rose up to seize hold of her and drag her down into them.
Her skin crawled, icy fingers dancing across it. Touching. Caressing. Threatening to sink their claws in and tear her sanity away.
Taryn swallowed the bile that rose into her throat and pushed forwards, forcing her feet to move. She couldn’t lose her mind now. She had to reach her brother.
She turned the corner and lifted her head, and her eyes caught on his hand. His fingers clutched a small glass vial.
Tenak had given the elf a hallucinogenic drug that dragons used on the eve of battle to stir their strength and hunger for the fight, and destroy any fears they might have. Those dragons took it in powdered form, because it was slower to enter the bloodstream and the effects were drawn out.
In liquid form, the drug was swift to enter the blood, the effect of it hitting the user in a devastating rush that had been known to destroy the mind of even the strongest dragons.
Taryn stared at the vial.
Her brother had given the drug to the elf as a liquid, and she couldn’t imagine what it had done to him.
She looked across at the male as she approached her brother. Her breathing came quicker again, flashes of her past overlaying onto the present, flickers of all the cages she had seen and all the poor souls they had contained.
Agony rolled through her, cold and hot at the same time, tearing down her strength and she sank into her memories, unable to claw her way to freedom as she stared at the elf male.
Caged.
Forced to do things against his will.
She wrapped her arms around herself and pressed her nails into her flesh, using the pain to anchor her in the present. It wouldn’t last forever. The trick would give her a few minutes at best before the memories regained control and she slipped away again, drowning in them.
A few minutes in which she had to watch her male as he suffered.
Gods, part of her wanted to sink into her memories to escape the terrible sight.
The rest of her demanded she stay lucid and do something.
She looked to her brother. He watched the elf for a few seconds longer and then looked across at her, a satisfied smile on his face. She wanted to claw it off.
“He will scream for you, Sister. He will pay.”
She wanted to scream at him that she didn’t want that. The elf had done nothing wrong. He didn’t deserve what her brother was inflicting on him.
Because of her.
Tenak wanted the male to suffer as payment for hunting her.
She couldn’t bear that. She knew her brother couldn’t see what he was doing to her, reminding her of the dark things she had survived, keeping them constantly close to the surface of her mind so they tormented her, chipping away at her sanity and leaving her feeling she was close to becoming as mad as he was.
He only thought of pleasing her in his own twisted way.
She looked back at the elf and closed her eyes when he bit down again, snarling as he tore at the female. What terror was he experiencing as he devoured her? Taryn could feel there was a part of him still aware of what he was doing and she knew that when the drug wore off and he realised he had killed the female, the guilt would destroy him.
He was a noble male.
Not a murderer.
She couldn’t allow him to kill the female. She couldn’t let him suffer more than he had and he would if he took the fae’s life when lost to whatever madness gripped him.
The darkness.
She knew enough about elves to know that many lost themselves to the darkness that lurked within them all, a part of them that they needed but feared at the same time, constantly wrestling to keep it under control.
That darkness was slowly sinking its teeth into the male, but her instincts said that it hadn’t consumed him yet. There was still time to save him, but she had to act now. If he killed the fae, he would be lost forever in the black abyss.
“Brother,” she said, keeping the tremble of nerves from her voice and her eyes on the elf male when Tenak looked down at her. She forced a smile, the most grotesquely twisted one she could manage, and raised her eyes to her brother. “Thank you for making him suffer… but I wish to… I want to make him suffer myself. I want to savour this moment alone. You have had your time with him. Please allow me to have mine.”
The fae female’s heart stuttered and Taryn’s palms began to sweat, her pulse kicking up a notch as she waited for her brother to respond.
He stared at her for long seconds and she almost glanced at the elf male, on the verge of screaming at her fated one to stop what he was doing before he killed the female and damned himself.
“Very well,” Tenak said and she had never heard sweeter words.
Relief rolled over her as her brother walked away and she listened to him ascending the stairs, tracked him with her senses to make sure he was moving to a distance where he would be unaware of what she was about to do.
The moment he had moved high into the castle, she tore the cell door open and lunged forwards. The male lifted his head and hissed through bloodied fangs at her as she reached for the fae female. His warning rushed through her, a command to stay away from his prize that she ignored. He wouldn’t kill her, but he would kill the fae if she let this go on any longer.
Taryn ripped the fae female away from him, twisted with her and set her down near the door of the cell. Her fingers shook as she groped over the fae’s throat, searching for a pulse. It was weak, but it was there, and the relief that went through Taryn almost brought her to tears.
The elf male growled behind her.
It was all the warning she had before the cell spun around her and his fangs were in her throat.
She whimpered as pain seared her, her head spinning from the dizzying rush of him drawing on her blood. He snarled and drew her closer, wrapping his strong arms around her and crushing her against his bloodied bare chest. It heaved against hers, pressing in hard, making it difficult for her to breathe.
<
br /> Her heart pounded hard and she clutched at his shoulders, tried to push him back. Her fingers slipped in all the blood, sliding off him as she fought him.
He growled a warning this time, a command that she felt to the very depth of her soul. He wanted her to keep still. She couldn’t. She shoved against his shoulders, panic at the helm, desperately fighting his hold on her.
“Let me go,” she whispered in the dragon tongue.
He bit down harder and she had to clench her teeth to stop herself from crying out. She couldn’t make a sound, no matter how much it hurt or how afraid she was. If her brother heard her and realised what she had done, he would kill the elf and she would be next.
“Please.” She clawed at his shoulders and wriggled in his arms, and fierce fire licked down her throat as his fangs shifted, slicing through her skin.
He snarled again, released her neck and grappled with her, seizing hold of her arms. She shook her head and fought him, refusing to give in, but she wasn’t strong enough. He easily pinned her arms between them, his grip on them bruising as he clutched both of her wrists together in one hand. His other hand grasped her neck and she whimpered as his fangs sank back into her throat.
He moaned.
Tears streamed down her cheeks and she stared at the ceiling of the cell, her strength draining from her as rapidly as her blood as he fed deeply, suckling hard on her neck.
Her vision dulled.
Caged.
In bars made of flesh and blood this time.
She had to break free. That thought pounded through her even as her struggling slowed, her actions becoming weaker as her mind fogged.
She shook in his arms, cold to the bone, no longer strong enough to fight even when she wanted to, desperately needed to break free. She needed to live, but she couldn’t move as her life slipped away from her and darkness loomed around her.
A single thought swam around her head, one that chilled her and stole the last of her strength.
Loke had been right.
The elf would be responsible for her death.
CHAPTER 20
Bliss.
Bleu floated in the darkness, lost in his hunger, drowning in it. He embraced it. Caught it in his hands, drew it to his chest and curled around it, tucking it close to his heart.
Blinding light pierced the endless black, a bolt of lightning inside his mind.
No. Not lightning in his mind.
A shaft of sunlight inside his heart.
It warmed him and stirred his hunger, but brought awareness back with it. The taste of blood on his tongue. A warm body pressed against his. He had been hungry before but the smooth, smoky-sweet blood flowing down his throat now had made his thirst unquenchable.
He couldn’t get enough, even when a piece of him, a dim part of his mind, warned him to stop.
He was hurting her.
Yet the feel of her hands clutching him, clinging to him, gave him pleasure deeper than any he had ever known, a sensation of being whole for the very first time that left him feeling he had been empty all these years, drifting through his life with part of him missing.
He bit her harder and willed her to tighten her hold on him, to cling to him as fiercely as he clung to her.
Her grip loosened instead.
Her slender body went limp in his arms.
Bleu slowed his drinking, the awareness her blood had awoken in him gaining ground, driving back the darkness. He was endangering them both, but he still couldn’t bring himself to stop. He didn’t care.
He wanted to drink her down until she was a part of him, fused with him in a way that was unbreakable.
She would belong to him forever.
He would never be alone again.
Something screamed at the back of his mind, a jumbled wave of words that struck terror into his heart, although he didn’t know why. He lapped at her blood, moaning at the taste of her. Divine.
His heart faltered.
He frowned and then grimaced as it missed another beat, and then began to slow, and his head felt light, his thoughts tangling together before splintering apart.
The strength that had been flowing through him instantly diminished, fading away until he was trembling, barely clinging to consciousness by the bloodied tips of his claws.
He needed more blood.
He went to sink his fangs back into the female and stopped dead with the very tips of them touching her flesh.
Her pulse beat weakly in his ears.
In his chest.
Her fear tainted his blood.
The darkness lifted as primal instincts roared to the fore and the words that had been jumbled before fell into order.
He was killing her.
Bleu forced himself back and looked down at the female in his arms. Her face ashen. Throat ravaged.
The dragon.
His mate.
He felt it keenly in his soul as he stared at her where she lay in his arms, her beauty stealing his breath and making him burn even as what he had done hollowed out his chest and left him cold.
“Taryn,” he whispered as he carefully shifted her in his arms, cradling her in his left one, not feeling the pain that burned through the still-healing bones. Not caring about his own suffering. It meant nothing. His mate meant everything. He stroked her bloodied left cheek, brushing the backs of his fingers across it. “Taryn.”
He willed her to wake and answer him, desperate for her to look at him and let him know that he hadn’t killed her.
He couldn’t have killed her.
“Taryn,” he bit out, harsher now, unable to stop the surge of darker emotions as they swept through him, unleashed by his fear that he was going to lose her.
She didn’t respond.
His strength drained from him, hope dying with it, and he curled over her, burying his face in her fall of violet-to-white hair as he clung to her. Fuck, what had he done?
Tears burned the backs of his eyes and he growled into her throat, clutching her closer to him, near mad with a need to feel her warmth against him and hear her tell him that she would be fine. She wasn’t going to die.
Her pulse grew weaker, the timid beat echoing in his chest, affecting his own heart.
His eyes widened.
The bond.
Gods, he had triggered it by biting her and taking her blood.
Now it linked them, incomplete but powerful, entwining their bodies.
He pulled back and set his jaw. He wasn’t going to let her die. He refused to lose her.
He placed his right hand over her heart, closed his eyes and focused on her blood in his body—on his connection to her. The link shimmered in his blood, began to grow stronger until it burned in his veins. His head turned, the effort draining him, but he refused to stop. He didn’t care if he killed himself.
He only cared about saving her.
In his mind, he reached out and caught the ribbon of red that now linked them, curled his fingers around it and clutched it so tightly his knuckles burned.
Warmth flowed through him and he sank deep into the connection, drifting through it into Taryn and using his psychic abilities to forge a stronger link between them. His strength leached away as his powers took their toll on him, but he kept pushing, using all of his will to hold the connection between them open so he could hijack control of her body.
The warmth became a fire, a blaze that burned through him, and flames licked at his throat, white-hot and fierce.
Bleu opened his eyes and stared at the wounds on her throat as they burned on his.
He turned his focus to his body—to his heart—and willed it to beat harder. He drew deep breaths, slowly and steadily filling his lungs, and gradually his pulse grew stronger.
And hers grew stronger with it.
His arms shook where he held her, trembling against her back as his hand quivered against her chest, pressed between her breasts.
Her heartbeat gained strength beneath his palm and in his chest, his own one
fuelling hers, keeping it going as he silently urged her to find her will to live again. She was strong. A dragon. Her healing abilities were on a par with his. If he could keep her heart going for long enough, her body would restore enough of her lost blood to keep her alive.
Lost blood.
He sneered at that.
Blood he had stolen from her.
He had almost killed her. What kind of male did that make him? What kind of mate? He was meant to protect her, to keep her safe and never let anything bad happen to her. That was his duty as her mate, and he had failed.
He had failed to protect her, but he wouldn’t fail to save her.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat with her, the link between them held wide open by sheer force of will alone, his heart beating for hers. Everything faded until there was only Taryn, lying in his arms, teetering on the brink of death.
Until there was only the terrifying thought of losing her and the grim determination to stop that from happening.
His strength faded as he poured all of it into saving her. The world around him dimmed and his hand rested lax against her chest, his body no longer able to power his muscles. All he could do was sit with her resting on his lap and cling to the slender thread of the link between them.
A slender thread of hope.
His vision wobbled and darkness encroached.
Her eyelids fluttered.
Bleu jerked awake and studied her face, a surge of energy blasting through him and driving the darkness back. He stared down at her, willing her to move again, to prove he hadn’t been dreaming.
She did one better.
She moaned.
“Gods, I am sorry, Ki’ara,” he whispered in the elf tongue, the flood of emotions that crashed over him battering him so fiercely he shook from the onslaught. He managed to lift his hand and stroke her cheek as he stared down at her. “I am so sorry. I never meant to hurt you… I swear it.”
Her eyes slowly opened, a frown knitting her eyebrows together. He knew she couldn’t understand him, but he wasn’t ready to say things in a language she knew, not when she wasn’t ready to hear them and he wasn’t ready to face everything.
Possessed by a Dark Warrior Page 19
