Prince of Stone (Imperia)

by Gena Showalter

  That would happen, oh, never.

  “Percen,” she repeated. This time, she opened her arms to him.

  Her allure proved too heady. He dropped to his knees before her and cupped her face in his hands. “When this is over, angel, I wish to begin a new life with you.”

  “I…yes. I would like that.” Her sensual lips curled in a bright smile. “I would like that a lot.”

  Despite his poor physical condition, he returned the smile, happiness stirring for the first time in…ever? “I need only two, maybe three more days, then I will be pleased to offer you my blood oath. We will be together. Forever.”

  “Why wait? We can—” She pressed her lips together, the sparkle in her eyes dimmed. “This is about Jorlan. Why can’t you let go of your vendetta? Please, Percen. Put me first. Put us first.”

  “Don’t you see? He is a poison in my blood, and vengeance is the only antidote.”

  “Vengeance will not heal you. Trust me, I know. I was just a child when my father began…he…he did things. Awful things. I was not the only one he hurt. When his crimes finally came to light and he was hauled to prison, I thought I would feel better. I expected my healing to begin, and when it didn’t, I only felt worse.”

  A bomb of fury detonated inside him. “Your father harmed you? He will die screaming!”

  “I didn’t tell you so you would take care of him for me. I like that he is suffering in jail. Death would be a kindness. I told you so you would realize you aren’t going to feel better when Jorlan is dead.”

  “Jorlan and Katie.” He would feel better, knowing his dream had come to fruition at long last. “She escaped my scheme once, but she will not do so again.”

  Air hissed between Heather’s teeth. “What did you do to Katie? You said nothing about hurting her!”

  “She is Jorlan’s chosen partner. Therefore, she must share his fate. ’Tis the only way.”

  “No.” She shook her head so forcefully, locks of hair slapped her cheeks. “No!”

  But… “You hate her as much as I do.”

  “I did. Once. But I don’t want her harmed. She’s been good to me and my mom.”

  “Good or no, she is Jorlan’s lover and that makes her my enemy. Yours, as well.”

  Tremors rocked her against him. From cold? Or disappointment? Was he losing her already? The one woman in all the worlds who’d found him attractive.

  “You were right when you said I don’t know you,” she told him with a soft tone. “I don’t know how you can make me feel so warm inside, yet speak so casually of cold-blooded murder.” Tears wet her lashes. “How can you be so cruel?”

  His fury resurfaced. “Are doctors cruel for removing poison from their patients? Nay. They are heroes. Because of Jorlan, I am nothing but hate.”

  “That’s a lie, Percen, and somewhere deep down you know it.” She looked past him, past the window. “You don’t know this, but you saved my life. You gave me a reason to keep going. Leave with me now, and I swear I will do everything in my power to save yours.”

  Percen wanted so desperately to believe they could live happily ever after and shed the horrors of the past. Until the hatred brutally slayed the hope.

  The door swung open, Heather’s mother rushing inside. “Heather,” she said between panting breaths, “you’ll never believe—”

  She spotted Percen. He waved his hand, unleashing a wave of magic, and teleported himself back to Katie’s abode to finish what he’d started.

  * * *

  HEATHER WATCHED, HELPLESS, as Percen vanished and her mother dropped in a dead faint to the floor.

  She dove to the floor to gather her mother into her arms. “Mother. Mom.” She patted the sleeping woman’s cheeks. “Please wake up.”

  Percen materialized a few feet away, startling a gasp from her. “Fine! If it will distress you, I will not kill Katie. But I will use her.”

  Not good enough. “If you do this—”

  “Aye. I will do this.” With another wave of his hand, he disappeared.

  “—we are done,” she finished, dejected.

  * * *

  JORLAN SLEPT FOR an entire day. He had yet to stir, yet he had only a day or two until the curse took effect. The poor guy hadn’t even moaned. Or moved. Such stillness frightened Katie to the bone.

  He was the sleeping dead.

  What if this was the reemergence of the curse?

  Horror sliced at her calm. No, no, no. This wasn’t part of the curse. This was…something else.

  She’d stayed right by his side, leaving only to use the bathroom or eat. To keep him hydrated, she worked streams of water down his throat multiple times a day. She’d even given him sponge baths and somehow managed to change his clothes.

  What she hadn’t done? Lug him to a bed. Or called her brothers to lug him to a bed. He remained on the hardwood floor of the Victorian. Well, on a pallet of blankets she’d shoved underneath his body.

  Gah! She needed some sort of affirmation that he was alive and well. If she didn’t get one soon, she would call 9-1-1. But what would the paramedics say to her? Your alien is ailing? No telling how Jorlan was fashioned inside. His heart might be in his ass. Who knew?

  Maybe she should call her brother Brian first. He worked in the medical field. He’d fly in and examine Jorlan. He’d also demand answers she couldn’t give him. But he wouldn’t turn the alien over to the government, as other doctors would do.

  Katie rubbed her temples. One more hour. She’d give Jorlan one more hour before calling in reinforcements.

  She ran her palms over his chest, picking up previously missed details. The man had a wealth of scars, evidence of the difficult life he’d led. No telling how many battles and wars he’d fought. And yet, despite his many hardships, always he’d been so tender with her. So gentle.

  The clamor of her heart echoed in the quiet of the room as she toyed with a lock of his hair. The midnight strands tickling her skin.

  She wasn’t exactly sure what had happened before she’d woken up on the floor. Oh, she knew she’d fallen through a hole in the wood, then woken up with Jorlan cradling her head in his lap, his eyes dark with fear. Now there was a gaping hole in the living room ceiling.

  Had Jorlan caught her before she’d hit bottom? Why wasn’t she injured?

  The fresh blood splattered on the wood matched the blood on her shirt. A torn short. She must have gotten stabbed on the way down. So again, why wasn’t she injured?

  The answer hit, and hit hard. Jorlan had used magic to heal her. He must have. That was why Frances had run away as if the IRS was after her.

  Suddenly, everything but Jorlan’s continued slumber made sense.

  Once the hour ended, his condition unchanged, Katie caressed his cheekbones, his jaw, letting him know she hadn’t left. “I’m going to do it,” she told him. “I’m going to call Brian.”

  A soft, almost undetectable moan escaped him.

  Finally! Hope warmed her better than sunshine.

  Determined to wake him by any means necessary now, she strode to the kitchen, snatched a cup, and filled it with ice and water. Then, she returned to his side, intending to toss the contents in his face.

  He woke up on his own, blinking open his eyes. “Katie,” he said, slowly smiling as if he hadn’t scared ten years off her life.

  “Glory hallelujah.” Her knees went weak, and she just sort of crumpled to the floor beside him. “Welcome back, Jorlan. Welcome back.” With each second that passed, he looked stronger, healthier, the color returning to his cheeks. She drank in his masculine beauty and told him, “Don’t ever pass out on me again. You hear? You scared me to death.”

  “Then I must make amends.” Never taking his eyes from her, he stretched out his arms. “Come to me.”

  Dropping the cup, water splashing everywhere, she threw herself into his waiting embrace. He was alive, and nothing else mattered.

  “I need you, katya. I need you now.” He breathed the words into her neck. “Do
you have the strength?”

  “I do.” She needed to reaffirm that they both lived, that they were still together, so she would find the strength. She captured his face in her hands. “I want you inside me, right here, right now.”

  “Then take me,” he rasped.

  Katie did just that. She removed her clothing, then his, straddled him, and shimmed down, until her mouth hovered just over the object of her fascination. “Jorlan?”

  “Hmm?” His breath emerged unsteadily.

  “I’m going to taste you.”

  He arched a brow. “You think I will stop you?”

  She took the bulbous head into her mouth, tasting a hint of salt. Then, she took in the rest of his massive length, as much of him as possible. He hit the back of her throat and though she gagged, she continued sucking him up and down, savoring the thickness, the heat.

  Getting the hang of this! And getting turned on in the process. As soon as she found the perfect rhythm, she brought her hands in to play. One aided her mouth, and the other rubbed her clitoris.

  Voice hoarse, he called, “Katie. Katie!” When he could take no more of her sweet torment, he grabbed her by the shoulders and wrenched her up. He kissed her then and positioned the tip of his shaft at her entrance, and oh!

  He entered her in one thrust.

  On top, she controlled the depth of his penetration. Love! At first, she rode him slowly, and not quite taking the full length of him.

  “Take me deeper,” he commanded. Sweat beaded his brow, and tension creased the corners of his eyes.

  “No, I want—” Oh! There! She continued to take only part of him, riding the waves of sensation.

  Jorlan clasped her hips to urge her on. “Faster. Please, katya. Deeper.” He made a sound in the back of his throat, a low moan full of need and promise and desperation. “Aye, just like that.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “By Elliea, you are mine. My woman.”

  She bent down to flick her tongue against his nipple and…yes! He released another of those needy moans. A siren’s song.

  “Say it,” he commanded. “Say you are mine.”

  She tried. She did. But she could only groan and gasp with pleasure.

  Rolling her over, he pinned her against the cold hardwood. She exhaled a light breath, an exclamation of wonder really, until she realized he had stopped moving. He remained still, gazing down at her, his expression soft but unflinching.

  “What are you doing?” She tried to move, to finish what they had begun, but his weight ensured she remained immobile.

  “I want to hear you say the words that bind you to me. You are mine. No exceptions. Say it.”

  No exceptions? If she were one hundred percent sure of his feelings for her, she would tell him anything and everything he wanted to hear. But, as she’d recently learned, trust didn’t come easy for her. She was a creature who demanded proof in all things. So far, he’d only managed to prove he needed her, not that he loved her.

  “I—I can’t say what you want to hear, Jorlan.”

  “You can. If you think I will let another male have you, you are sorely mistaken.”

  “You’re right. I can, but I shouldn’t.” But I might do it anyway. The words poised at the tip of her tongue.

  His eyes narrowed with stubbornness. “You will say the words, Katie, and thus we will be life mates forevermore. I almost lost you, and I never wish to experience such a fright again. I’ve run out of time, and we belong together.”

  We belong together.

  How she longed to believe him. How she yearned to give him everything he desired, in every situation. Still, a part of her held back, unsure. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I refuse to pledge my life to yours until I know you’re sincere.”

  “Curse you!” He pumped into her once, twice, again and again, harder each time. “Say you are mine. You want to, need to, I can see it in your eyes.”

  “No! I won’t set myself up for heartbreak.” She arched her back, chasing his length, taking all of him that he would give. Oh, he felt so good. “I won’t,” she said again, more for her benefit than for his. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.”

  He slipped his hand between their bodies and pressed against the core of her desire. She groaned in pleasure, and exquisite pain. “So you reject me yet again?”

  Only so I can survive emotionally. “Not a rejection. I want you. I’ll always want you. Now. Too much talking, not enough sex. Faster! Harder!”

  He didn’t give her harder or faster. He slowed down. “Mayhap, my little witch, I will have to do something to convince you otherwise.” His voice was a husky ripple that stroked her skin, but the wicked gleam in his eyes did not bode well for her sanity.

  “What—what do you mean to do?”

  He flexed and surged inside her, his fingers circling her little bundle of nerves. Again. Again. Her breath grew ragged, the pleasure too much. Not enough. She lifted her head to bite his collarbone.

  His ragged moan echoed in her ears. “Again. Bite me again.”

  She did.

  He roared his approval, still slamming inside her. Bliss. Rapture. Torment. She thrashed her head, too aroused to stay still.

  “That’s right, Katie. Your body requires mine. Do you feel yourself tightening around my shaft? Can you feel how your body responds to mine, and mine alone?”

  “Yes,” she shouted. “Oh, yes.”

  “Say the words, then. You know what your body wants. Now listen to your heart.”

  Yes, yes. “No!” Stay quiet and keep him a little longer. Obey, and lose him sooner than later.

  “I accept not your answer, katya. You belong to me, and soon I will make you realize just how much.”

  The words were a promise.

  The words were a challenge.

  What scared her most? He was a man of his word.

  * * *

  JORLAN STOOD UNDER the darkening sky in the Victorian’s backyard. A storm brewed in the distance, the scent of coming rain saturating the air. The garden where he’d spent so many spans loomed up ahead, but he did not enter. ’Twas a place he would just as soon forget existed.

  A phantom breeze swirled around him, there one second, gone the next. He should be inside with Katie, who’d fallen asleep shortly after reaching her peak, but an odd sensation had driven him here. For the first time in his life, he felt at one with the magic inside him, as if he’d at last unlocked the door to his true abilities.

  Already he’d opened and closed three vortexes to Imperia. The first time he’d been shocked. The second, he’d been afraid to hope. The third, he’d accepted the truth. He was stronger than ever. At last, he could go home. And yet…

  He would not leave Katie, even though she had, in fact, rejected him again.

  At the reminder, he balled his hands into fists.

  Part of her still believed he only wished to use her as a ticket to freedom. A woman who believed the worst of him was not in love with him, and would not be falling any time soon.

  He should go home to Imperia and spend his last hours with his loved ones. But…

  He wouldn’t.

  He should pick her up and carry her to his world, no matter her protests. Again, he wouldn’t.

  He’d told her he would convince her to wed him, and he’d meant it. A warrior to his core, he did not give up just because things had gotten tough. If he had minutes left on the clock, he had hope.

  While part of Katie believed the worst of him, the other part believed the worst of herself. That good, lasting things did not happen to her. Which was understandable. She’d lost her mother at a young age and had never felt worthy in her father’s eyes.

  How did you help someone else see past the darkness of their own fears, and into the light of love? You didn’t. You couldn’t. You could only ever control your own actions.

  No matter what, whether he won her heart or not, whether the curse took effect or not, he wanted to wed Katie James. If ever she needed protection, she
would be entitled to the use of his army. She would have access to his riches. And, if he were to get her pregnant, the baby would have a place to learn how to wield magic.

  Longing consumed him. Katie, pregnant…

  Perhaps he needed to trick her into wedding him? She would never have to know. She could merely enjoy the benefits of their joining.

  Aye. The perfect plan.

  Determined, he strode inside the house and stopped beside her pallet. Murky light bathed her sleeping form, like fairy dust illuminating a magic circle.

  Gently, he shook her awake. “This is very important, Katie. Awaken.”

  Her eyelids fluttered open, her irises unfocused. “What is it? Did something happen?”

  “I need you to repeat after me,” he told her.

  “Not now,” she yawned, and closed her eyes again. “I’m too sleepy.”

  “Katie.” He shook her a little harder. “This is very important.”

  “Why?”

  “Please, Katie.”

  She uttered a sigh and faced him. “Okay. I’m awake.”

  “Repeat after me.” He uttered a string of words in Imperian, a language she didn’t understand. The English equivalent: I pledge my life to you, now and forever. I am blood of your blood, bone of your bone, heart of your heart.

  She repeated them exactly. “Why—”

  He pressed a finger to her lips. Part one was done. That simple, and that complex. Guilt and shame surged, but he ignored them.

  Before she woke up enough to get serious about questioning him, he removed his clothing and slid under the covers. “Now I will make love to you.” Thereby completing the process.

  She might notice her deepening feelings for him as she dreamed his memories, but she would not know why.

  All would be well.

  * * *

  ALL WOULD NOT BE WELL.

  The evening came upon them with a vengeance. Katie napped as rain clinked against the windows. Wind whistled, bringing to mind banshees and demons coming to take their chosen to Hell.