Kindred of the Fallen

by Isis Rushdan

  She yawned. “What kind of a surprise?”

  “A really good one. Grab Cyrus and come down now!”

  There was a click, followed by a dial tone. She hung up the phone and yawned again.

  “That was Cassian. He said he has a surprise and we have to go downstairs right now.”

  She staggered to the bathroom, splashed water on her face to persuade her senses to awaken and changed from a comfy T-shirt and cotton pants to jeans and a simple top.

  When she returned to the bedroom, Cyrus had opened the curtains. Ebbing sunlight pierced the lavender and periwinkle sky.

  Cyrus took her hand and they left her room. In the hallway, music played.

  She gave him a curious look. “Do you know anything about this?”

  “I have no idea.”

  By the time they got downstairs, the music had stopped. From the conservatory, they saw lights on in the courtyard. Outside, the white stone table was set, lit white candles were scattered about and lanterns cast rays of jewel toned colors throughout the courtyard. Music erupted from the outdoor speakers. The sound of strumming guitars, drums, strings, and then whistling invigorated the evening, lifting her face into a smile.

  Cassian strolled out of a door opposite them, shimmying his shoulders and dancing to The Enemy Guns by DeVotchKa. He grabbed Serenity’s hand and twirled her around several times. Then he pulled her close and put his arm around her waist as he went into a Cha-Cha. She couldn’t stop laughing as she tried to keep up with him.

  He sang the lyrics, which only exacerbated her laughter. They whirled about the courtyard and she followed his lead as best she could. He whistled along with the song and she grinned as wide as her mouth would allow, carried away by his gaiety.

  The song faded to a close and he twirled her so she stopped in front of Cyrus. An upbeat version of the jazz song Sway, sung by a woman, played next. Cassian grabbed Talus and danced with her. Serenity pushed up against Cyrus and he curled his arms around her.

  “Can Cassian heal more than the body?”

  “He can heal emotional disturbances but only if you’re open to it. He can’t help with anything as severe as blood rage or the dark veil. He said he tried to heal you in the car, but you weren’t receptive to his energy.”

  “I feel much lighter now,” she said. “Can all healers do that?”

  “No. He thinks he’s weak but he doesn’t realize how special he is.”

  Cassian and Talus moved like professional dancers, their movements crisp and exact.

  “Have those two had lessons?”

  “After Cassian discovered some show called Dancing With The Stars, he insisted on taking lessons. He said he would use what he learned to woo his kabashem someday. Talus joined him.”

  Abbadon and Mrs. Carter carried several platters out into the courtyard.

  “Abbadon cooked! We’d better savor every bite,” Mrs. Carter said full of glee.

  Everyone walked over to the table and sat down to an aromatic feast.

  “I have prepared monkfish in saffron sauce, grilled cuttlefish, mussels in a garlic and wine broth, salt baked sea bass with herbs, grilled vegetables and braised short ribs for our meat lovers,” Abbadon announced.

  Lots of oohs and aahs rang out around the table. She didn’t know how it happened, but she ended up next to Talus.

  “I’d like to apologize for the way I spoke to you,” Serenity said.

  “Please don’t. It’s not necessary,” Talus said, giving a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

  For a second, she hoped they might become friends, but just as quickly Talus’s polite, polished smile faded and her frigid exterior returned.

  Cyrus brushed Serenity’s hair away from her face and kissed her cheek. At least she was trying to mend things with Talus. He hadn’t anticipated how much tension there’d be between the two females. He’d always enjoyed Talus’s adoration, but it was causing friction with his mate and he’d have to do something about it.

  Everyone dug into the food, including Mrs. Carter, and raved about how good everything tasted. The music continued, wine flowed freely and laughter abounded. Abbadon even smiled a few times.

  Hours later, only scraps remained on the platters. Talus and Cassian danced with exuberance near the fountain. They talked about taking a dip in the pool.

  Cyrus and Serenity meandered upstairs. With no obstacles between them, he led her to his room and lit a fire. Her eyes grew big as she glanced around.

  “This is new,” she said, running her hands across the silk bronze duvet with burgundy and gold threads, covering the bed that was larger than a regular king size.

  He drew the curtains. “I thought you might prefer this one over the other.”

  “So you had naughty plans to bring me to your bed?” she asked with a coy smile.

  He cocked his head to the side and nodded. “I had hoped.” He sat on the plush area rug in front of the hearth and watched her cross the room.

  Her skin was aglow with love, happiness and desire so deep it washed through their energy stream in fluttering waves. He’d hoped she’d come to him with a full heart, but still couldn’t believe it. This was the way he wanted their union to be. Not a task or a duty or forced upon her. Redemption meant everything to his House, but her happiness and holding on to his mate for a lifetime had grown to mean more to him than anything else.

  At the sway of her hips and the curve of her breasts, he groaned, knowing what was to come. She stood in front of him, trembling. He took her hand and kissed her palm, wrist and forearm. She drifted down beside him onto the silky rug. He held her face gently in his hands. His kisses were tender on her lips, cheeks, eyelids, neck.

  “Before the sun rises, I’m going to kiss every inch of your body.”

  “Do you promise?” she said in a breathy voice that stirred his blood.

  He wanted to take his time and relish every touch, each kiss, but warmth bubbled up, tempting him to rush forward. “I promise.”

  Her eyes flickered with light and yearning. His growing erection protested against the zipper of his pants. He kissed her hard, pushing her down.

  His hands slid to the bottom of her shirt and lifted it over her head. Her breasts called to his mouth. With his teeth, he nipped lace, sliding it down. A pert breast popped free. He flicked his tongue over a hard nipple before taking it into his mouth. She whimpered beneath him. He smiled with satisfaction as his hands, hot and certain, explored her body.

  There wouldn’t be any restraint or distraction tonight.

  Uncovering the other breast, he made that nipple glisten to match the first. When he kissed the hollow of her neck, she purred. His cock throbbed with desperate need.

  He cupped her breasts and licked the valley of her bosom. Her body quivered. A shaky breath that teetered on a moan left her lips. He unfastened her jeans and she arched her hips as he slid them off.

  Struck by the sight of her bare in the firelight—radiant toffee skin, slender limbs and ample curves he could get lost in—he forgot how to breathe, spellbound by her beauty. She was the most exquisite, perfect female the Creator had ever set on earth.

  His fingers traced the luscious lines of her body. Tattooed around her navel was an unusual flower. In between the elegant petals shaped like sharp blades were black thorns, equally as striking and deadly. He stroked the odd design with his thumb, relishing the feel of her smooth skin, but his blood burned hot, his body craving more.

  Every cell crackled with electricity; every nerve ending stimulated. Scintillating ripples of heat flowed in the merged pool of their life force, stoking their building need.

  Bands of blue-white light emanated from her navel in wispy tendrils.

  Her eyes brightened as she took deep breaths. Her hips bucked up. “I want to feel you inside of me.” She rubbed her knees together and bit her lip.

  Desire coiled deeper, tightening in his muscles.

  “Patience. We’ll have hundreds of years to get our fill of each oth
er.” He captured her juicy mouth and shoved his tongue in the delicious hot cavern.

  Arms wrapped around his neck, drawing him closer. As their tongues danced, he wondered if he would ever tire of her taste, sweet ambrosia. He could feast upon her lips gladly for all his days and never need more sustenance.

  Settling in between her legs, he drank in the flawless features of her face. With a long inhale, he took her scent deep into his lungs. Heady mimosa and roses spiced with the heat of her sex drugged him.

  All mine. Only mine.

  Trembling fingers pried the top of his pants open. His aching member hit her belly. He slid lower until the tip of his erection dipped beyond her pelvis, brushing moist heat.

  She was already wet with desire, ready to take him.

  Vines of light twisted around him, stroking him. Shimmering tendrils stretched, licking him from scalp to soles. His skin tingled with pleasure.

  He pressed his lips to her sternum. His teeth grazed her skin as he worked his way from her ribs, tickling her, to her belly button, taking his time, teasing her. His heart pounded, falling in synch with her pulse. She drew her legs up against his shoulders and he growled, warring with himself to pleasure her slowly or to simply take her, again and again.

  She threaded her fingers in his hair, digging into his scalp down to his neck. Her arousal permeated his flesh, overflowing from their stream, blurring together. His body hardened with need.

  Her emotions fueled his, generating more heat until he burned hot as a star.

  Energy churned, deepening the pleasure inside of him, inside of her, all one, driving him closer to the brink.

  Incandescent light ensconcing them in a sparkling blue-white cocoon radiated from Serenity’s midsection in thrilling streamers that teased every inch of her from the inside out.

  She yanked off his shirt. With her fingers and tongue, she explored his body, velvet skin over chiseled muscle. Hands touched flesh with long, rough strokes.

  His hungry mouth and searing tongue left a trail of flames from her pelvic bone to her hips. He nibbled the tender flesh of her thigh and she cried out.

  “I need to feel you, please,” she begged, trying not to slip over the edge until he was inside of her. But the sensation of his hair grazing the sensitive mound between her legs was the last push off the sweet cliff into the euphoric chasm.

  Spasms of pleasure rippled through her body. She curled her fingers in his hair as her body shook. Then she pulled his lips to hers. At the sweetness of his tongue, she moaned. Her body burned for him, ached with the need to have him.

  A thick finger delved into the wet, greedy lips between her thighs, driving her to writhe and beg for more. A second speared her and she bucked up in eager acceptance.

  “Please, more,” she breathed, searching for his erection with her hand. “I need more of you.” Curling her fingers around his shaft, she stroked him. “Please.”

  As he entered her, she gasped. He went slowly, filling her, bit by firm bit.

  Their bodies tangled together. He slid in to the hilt and she shuddered with another orgasm. Waves of pleasure surged, unending.

  Each caress, each stroke, each thrust was bliss—but not enough.

  Once he was finally buried deep inside, he released a guttural groan. He didn’t move, his pelvis clamped to hers, his swollen member throbbing with her heat. The delicious agony of it made her gyrate her hips and they tumbled into a freefall of ecstasy.

  A heart pounded, the beat filled her as he did. Whose heart? His? Hers? She couldn’t say. They now beat as one as their bodies melted into an undulating swirl of honey and cream.

  Pure love and unending desire pumped through them.

  She longed for him to fill her with his seed, to pump his essence inside of her until he had nothing left. Need swelled into a crescendo of excruciating pleasure and she thought she’d burst.

  Lost in a tidal wave of passion, she threw her head back in rapturous delirium. Blue light swirled around them. Energy and pleasure pulsed, wave after wave.

  She raked the silken rug with one hand and twisted her fingers through his hair with the other. As he came, her body convulsed with another orgasm.

  Deep contractions held him inside of her, milking him for every drop until he was spent. They lay with their sweaty limbs intertwined in a breathless heap.

  And still, she yearned for more.

  She stared at the ceiling, rooted in gratitude. Although he assured her they would have hundreds of years together, she could only be grateful for each sublime moment as it came.

  “Can we do it in the bed now?” she asked.

  Grinning, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bed.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Evan sipped on hot coffee, drained from talking about Serenity for hours. The fresh militant clothing wasn’t his style, but they were dry and warm. The room had no windows, but his internal body clock told him it was close to sunrise. His watch read four twenty-five in the morning.

  “I could use some food,” he said.

  Artemis took a silver vial from her pocket, closed her eye as she drank the liquid, then mouthed something to herself. She slipped the vial back in her pocket and her cornflower blue eye settled on him. Even with the eye patch she was gorgeous. Before she’d been maimed, she must’ve had heartrending beauty.

  “You can eat after,” she said.

  “After what?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  She led him through a maze of hallways to a different elevator. After she punched in a code, they rode two floors down. It opened to a lab. Men in white coats looked hard at work doing scientific stuff. Weaving around metal tables, they made their way to the periphery and to a set of steel doors.

  At the entrance, Artemis pressed her palm to a digital screen mounted on the wall and the doors slid open.

  An armed security guard sat at a desk off to the side with a dim lamp for illumination. The steel doors sealed shut with a thud.

  “Light it up,” Artemis said.

  The man flipped a switch. The dark space before them brightened.

  Three glass pods were lined against the back wall. A dead blue-black monster with wings floated inside each one. Were they movie props or something?

  He got up close to the glass. They looked like men with navy-colored skin, wrinkled from the liquid, but with wings. “What are they?”

  “They call themselves Kindred.”

  Evan meandered around the tubes, inspecting each one, half believing what he saw.

  “Have you ever seen one before?” Artemis asked.

  Evan shook his head. “I think I’d remember.”

  “Not even in a drawing?”

  Serenity’s sketches popped to mind. He stared at Artemis, but said nothing.

  “We already know about her sketches.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. If she’d seen one of these things, she would’ve told me.”

  “Does she have the gift of foresight?”

  “Do you mean psychic? No.” Evan looked back at the Kindred in the middle tank.

  “She’s never dreamt about something that has later come to pass?”

  “No.” Then he remembered that wasn’t true. “She used to dream all the time as a child. The only dream she remembered having was of her mother abandoning her and of her father dying. After it actually happened, she didn’t dream again until a couple of months ago.” He stared at the blue-winged monstrosity. “Does it mean she’s going to see one of these things?”

  “Cyrus is Kindred,” Artemis said.

  Evan spun to face her, shaking his head. “He can’t be. He doesn’t look like this.”

  “They look like you and me, which enables them to hide in plain sight, but their warriors can change into this.”

  He shook his head again. “What would he want with Serenity?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said as her eyelids lowered. “But she caught his attention and now he wants her.”
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br />   Evan could smell a lie, a talent that came in handy at the firm. He was being played. Artemis knew more, but for some reason wasn’t ready to share. In any other mergers and acquisitions negotiation, this was the point where he could get down to real business and turn the deal in his favor, but instinct warned him that if he pushed Artemis now, he’d lose.

  “As long as she’s with him, she won’t be safe,” Artemis added.

  “Does her birthmark have anything to do with this?”

  “We’ve found that the women they prey upon have strange birthmarks, but we’re not sure what it all means.”

  More lies. “This can’t be real.”

  “You said you were willing to go as far down the rabbit hole as necessary. This is just the beginning. These things have slowly been infiltrating every major government across the planet, maneuvering into positions of power and seeking global domination of major industries.”

  “What’s their goal? To rule the world?”

  “Possibly, but my employer is determined not to let that happen.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “A great man named Ravich. He wants to purge the world of these monsters and uplift humanity by curing disease and putting an end to war. He’s helped me a great deal. I was once very sick, but he saved me, took away my pain, made me better.”

  “If these things are real, the world needs to know. Why haven’t you exposed them?”

  “Ravich wants to handle things differently. These monsters are entrenched everywhere. Their warriors can tighten their skin to form a type of armor. Ordinary bullets can’t penetrate it and steel can’t cut them; think of an armadillo when defensive. We’ve had to develop specialized weapons that can disrupt their kinetic energy. Exposure is a last resort for Ravich. If that ever happened, the death toll for humanity would be staggering. He doesn’t want that and believes there is a better way to deal with them.”

  “How?”

  “Trust takes time to build, Evan. Once you’ve proven yourself, I’ll share more. For now, you need something to eat. Then we can see how dirty you’re willing to get in order to have your precious Serenity back.”