Marked for Death

by Claire Ashgrove

  “An existence I no longer wished to endure.” He cleared his throat, and his voice gained strength. “When you were with me, I was inspired to hold on to my mother’s lightness. There was no end to what I would do, so that when I stood before the ancestors I could return. But…I’ve followed my sire’s calling, Solène. Though I have not killed since the weeks after your death, I have done many things, and people have suffered at my hands. I was cruel to my own brother’s fiancée when I could have simply explained my purpose.”

  The pain that reflected in his raw honesty pulled at the strings around Solène’s heart. Her chin quivered, and she sniffed to stop the overflow of tears. “Oh, Taran. I am so sorry I wasn’t here for you.”

  “When I came to the shop last night, it was to seal my fate with the ancestors. I cannot undo my wrongs now, my sweet. To be free of this curse, to destroy the bastard who set this upon my family, I will perform Nyamah’s intended ritual. I will face my judgment, and I will not return.” Ever-so-slightly, his fingers tightened against the hollow of her ear. “I’m sorry I failed you.”

  “No.” She eased out of his hold and set a knee on the chair. Looping her arms around his neck, she hugged him tight. “You haven’t failed me.” Brushing a kiss against his temple, she whispered, “You never could.”

  He turned his head, and his mouth found hers. Softly. Hesitantly. Yet the tightening of his fingers at her waist belied deeper yearning. Need that had no definition. Hunger that knew no satisfaction. She sank into the warmth of his body and parted her lips to his tender persuasion.

  Taran’s hand slid up her back to tangle in her hair. But despite the underlying fierceness in his fingers, his kiss remained slow and undemanding. She met the stroke of his tongue with equal languor, allowed the heady scent of his cologne to balm the savage tears across her heart. What happened between them tomorrow night, whether they said a final goodbye, or whether she would spend eternity as Drandar’s slave, held no meaning. All that mattered was here and now. His arms holding her tight. The love that bound them together. The happiness they had shared before and could now know again, however brief it might be.

  His grip tightened in her hair, and he eased her away as he broke the kiss to look into her eyes. “I have loved you beyond all reason for as long as I can remember.”

  That simple, heartfelt confession sent a fresh rush of tears coursing down Solène’s cheeks. Her throat clogged with emotion, and she could only manage a nod that echoed his sentiment.

  Slowly, reverently, he feathered kisses across her cheeks, her eyes, down her nose to dust each corner of her mouth. The tension in his fingertips ebbed, and he held her loosely in place as he traced her lower lip with the tip of his tongue.

  A shudder rolled through Solène. Her stomach fluttered, and she struggled for a normal breath. Too much…Not enough…A gasp wrenched free as Taran brought his free hand between their bodies and covered her breast with his palm. His dark eyes burned into her before thick long lashes shuttered them away, and he clasped her lips once more. A chaste catch and release that amplified the rasp of his unsteady breathing.

  Solène tucked her fingers beneath the lapels on his jacket to push the supple leather to his shoulders. Despite the fine fabric of his shirt, his skin was warm beneath her palms. Heat she craved in the deepest recesses of her soul.

  Her nail caught on a tiny button, and she worked it free. As she moved to the next, Taran opened his eyes, and her breath caught all over again at the emotion reflected in those dark pools. But even more earth-shattering was the glimpse of pure humanity that lived inside his tormented soul. The goodness few others had ever taken the time to observe.

  Silence enveloped them as she loosened the remaining buttons and he mirrored the motions of her hands. No words could convey what transmitted through the press of fingertips, the catch and fall of their mutual breathing, the intimacy shared with a soft smile, a prolonged blink, a spellbound shiver. And neither would voice what they both understood—this would be the last night they would share together.

  When Solène’s blouse pooled on the floor beside his shirt, Taran pulled her sideways onto his lap. His forearm slid beneath her knees, and in one graceful movement he rose to his feet. His heart thumped steadily against the side of her breast as he carried her to the center of the faded ornate rug and gently laid her on the floor beneath the chandelier, where they had first made love in their new home. She looped her arms around his neck and drew him down against her. At the press of his bare chest against hers, her stomach somersaulted. Sweet ancients of the beyond, he felt good.

  The rumble of satisfaction that bubbled in the back of his throat said he shared the same sentiment.

  Time stood still as Taran kissed her. The slow, languorous stroke of his tongue mimicked the brush of his thumb against her breast. Her nipples beaded at the pleasant torture. Heat swept through her veins and settled in her womb. Perfect pleasure. And yet, nowhere near enough.

  She shifted beneath him, craving the full contact of his body, the way he would fill her to completeness. Taran dropped his free hand to her hip and held her still. His mouth left hers to skate down the column of her neck. The scrape of his teeth against her tender flesh left her trembling. The flick of his tongue scored a trail of fire to her breast, and as he closed his lips around her puckered nipple, a quiet mewl slid from her lips. Taran answered the sound with the slow pull of his mouth.

  She tangled her hand in his long hair. Twisted her head against the ecstasy. “Taran…”

  “Shh.” A wicked smile danced across his lips before he lowered his head to her opposite breast and swirled the tip of his tongue around her nipple.

  Solène clamped her teeth into her lower lip to stifle a sharp cry. She ordered her body to remain still, to submit to his sweet agony. Her fingers disobeyed and curled into his scalp. Despite the pressure of his hand, her hips shifted against his.

  When she began to believe she might fracture into pieces, Taran let her breast slide from his mouth. Cool air met her wet skin. Goose bumps broke across her body. The sudden contrast wrenched free a gasp. But before she could fully recover and pull her disjointed thoughts into sense, Taran shifted to his side, and his calloused palm scraped across her body. His index finger dipped beneath the low-rise waistband of her jeans. Teasing her further. Making her wait for what she craved.

  Two could play at his game. Giving him a dose of his own medicine, she offered a smile full of false innocence and flattened her hand against his jeans, over the hard ridge of his erection. Her taunting squeeze tightened Taran’s body into hewn stone. He never had been able to hold on to his composure when she cupped him so.

  “Damn.” The oath hissed between his clenched teeth.

  Mischief broadened her smile. “Shh.” Before he could twist out of her grasp, she trailed a solitary nail down the rigid length of him. Taran’s shudder sent pleasure rushing through her bloodstream.

  As if he were intent on ignoring the way she manipulated him, he chewed on the inside of his cheek and released the buttons at her waist. His large hand nudged the denim aside, and one lone finger slipped over the satin of her panties. As equally affected by him as he was by her, she reflexively lifted her hips, guiding him lower.

  Another oath whispered through the room, and Taran withdrew his hand. He knelt, dislodging her hold on him, and tugged on her jeans. She raised her hips, allowing him to shimmy the denim and her panties down her legs, over her feet. As he bent over her once more, he glided his hands up the inside of her legs. Inching closer to where she most wanted his touch, easing her legs apart to satisfy the yearning he knew she suffered.

  But instead of settling between her thighs and making love to her with his tongue, he merely brushed a kiss across her feminine curls. Disappointment and frustration launched through her. She bit back a plaintive whimper, and closed her eyes, counting to five. To ten. To fifteen before she felt she could once again see through the haze of blistering desire. Dimly she heard the rustl
e of his clothing, as he undressed.

  No sooner did she lift her lashes, than Taran’s warm, strong body settled over hers. His broad thighs fit neatly between her legs. The tip of his cock nestled against her damp center. Solène arched her back in a vain attempt to guide him deep within. But the effort only earned her a soft chuckle, a slight shake of his head, and a devastating roll of his hips that drove her out of her mind. She dug her nails into his shoulders, clinging to the edge of sanity.

  Taran braced himself on his hands, seemingly unaffected, though the twitching muscles in his shoulders belied his efforts at maintaining control. But he refused to give in. Instead, he dropped his head and drew her nipple into his mouth once more. One firm suckle reduced her to uncontrollable trembling. Between jagged gasps of air, she begged, “Taran…for the love of the ancients…please…”

  Chapter Twelve

  Every particle of Taran’s body wound into tight knots at the physical evidence of Solène’s rising need. The urge to mindlessly drive into her pulled at the edges of his awareness. To chase the intoxicating pleasure that built in his bloodstream until it consumed him completely. Sweet elements of nature, he couldn’t remember ever aching like this. But the selfish part of him, the part that would remember her even beyond death, wanted to scald this night into her memory.

  Another part of his soul ached with the bittersweet beauty of loving her. One hundred years he’d dreamt of her. In exchange for that century of longing, he’d been allowed two days of contentment. Hardly fair. Yet holding her now completed him in ways he’d never experienced before. He was whole here. Accepted. Loved beyond his comprehension.

  He sucked in a fortifying breath through flared nostrils and flicked his tongue across the valley between her breasts to her opposite nipple. Teasing that pert bud with his teeth, he reveled in the way she quivered beneath him. So close. She was so on the edge it pained him. But when he slid inside her warm flesh, he would break in a heartbeat, and he wanted her every bit as broken.

  “Taran…you will…” She gasped curled her hands into the worn rug. “Pay for this…”

  Her harmless threat made him chuckle again. Pay for it indeed. “I will hope so.” He took her nipple between his teeth and tugged. Her back came off the floor, and her nails bit into his shoulders.

  “Punish me well, my sweet.” He rimmed the rosy tip of her breast with his tongue. “Promise me.”

  But promises were useless—Solène writhed beneath him, making his attempt to nuzzle his way up her elegant neck to her sultry mouth impossible. He gave up and lifted his head, stilling his body entirely as he waited for her gaze to lock with his.

  Gradually, her dilated pupils focused, and awareness cleared her brilliant green eyes. A silent question puckered her brow. She opened her mouth, presumably to voice it.

  In that half-second of time, that brief moment of silence before thoughts gave way to speech, he arched his hips and eased inside her swollen flesh. Bliss pounded against his skull. Urged him to close his eyes and become lost in the staggering sensations that surged down his spine. He resisted the instinct and held her gaze, connecting them even more intimately.

  She shuddered in his arms.

  With clenched teeth, he fought spontaneous release and slowly withdrew. The feel of her flesh clamping around him made it impossible to breathe. To think. To do anything but surrender to nature and the perfection of their intertwined bodies. He pushed forward, sinking to blissful depths, no longer able to hold back.

  Solène met the steady rhythm of his thrusts. Her soft mewls filled his ears, taking him to even higher limits. He let the sounds consume him. Let himself become lost in her pleasure as he became lost in his own. Stroke-by-stroke he chased away the years apart, until ecstasy broke over his body. Pleasure sizzled through his spine, arced across frayed nerve endings. Pinpoints of light gathered behind his lowered lashes, blinding him to everything but the echo of her high-pitched keen and his own hoarse shout.

  Home…he had come home at last. To this house. To the dreams fate had ripped out of his hands. To the woman he would give his life to protect.

  His body slowed in time with hers. Deep within her, his shaft pulsed with the last of his release, and he dropped his head to her delicate shoulder, dimly aware of the pull of her fingers through his hair. He could not move if he wanted to, he was so utterly spent.

  But there were words he needed to say. Swallowing to moisten his cotton-like tongue, he whispered roughly, “I love you, Solène. I will never forget you.”

  To his surprise, that heartfelt confession broke what was left of him. His throat closed. Tears gathered in the corners of his closed eyes. He squeezed them shut more tightly in a desperate measure to keep the tears at bay. They slid free anyway. Ashamed, both for the weakness and the loss he’d brought upon them, he turned his face to the wall.

  “Taran.” Her arms wound around his waist and held him close.

  She didn’t need to say more. He heard the deeper meaning in the whisper of his name. And it was enough to give him the strength to sniff heartbreak away. He dashed the back of his wrist across his face and lifted to his hands. Tremulous green eyes shone up at him.

  “I want to stay with you tonight.” He placed a tender kiss on the tip of her nose. “But I don’t trust myself.”

  Solène flattened a gentle hand against his cheek. “Stay. I’m not afraid.”

  For several seconds he said nothing at all. Arguments waged war inside his mind. Sound objections that he knew would fall on deaf ears. And by the fates, he didn’t want to consider them. One full night with her would give him the strength to perform Nyamah’s ritual.

  “Stay,” she urged. “The bed is cold without you.”

  He couldn’t fight her. Not when he wanted nothing more than to drift off with Solène in his arms and wake to the warmth of her bare skin. One last night. He had earned that much, hadn’t he?

  “I cannot tell you no.”

  Her bright smile was worth every bit of discomfort that peppered his mind. He cast doubt aside and eased himself from within her warm sheath. With false humor, he suggested, “You should summon your wards.”

  Solène shook her head as she sat up. “They are far from here now.”

  Far from here? She controlled them—she could summon them whenever she wished. He cocked his head with a puzzled frown. But she turned before he could cast it her way.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked as she crossed to her discarded clothes. “I think I’m in the mood to cook.”

  Taran let out a hearty laugh. He had never understood why amazing sex drove her to the kitchen. But the glimpse of normalcy was enough to erase the melancholy that weighed on his shoulders. He eased to his feet and pulled on his jeans. “What are you craving, little dove?”

  “Waffles. With strawberries. Fresh from the market yesterday morning.” She didn’t miss a beat as she finished dressing and sauntered across the room. At the doorway, she stopped and held out her hand. “I’ll measure, you stir.”

  He tucked his hand into hers and nuzzled her cheek. “And who will do the eating? You despise waffles.”

  A tiny dimple puckered near the left corner of her mouth. Her eyes glittered with silent laughter. “But I like strawberries.”

  Still laughing, Taran shook his head and followed her into the hall. She possessed the oddest quirks. But damned if he didn’t adore every one of them.

  ****

  The light of the full moon streamed in through an open window and filled Solène’s bedroom. She basked in the song of crickets, the scent of deep fall, and the warmth of Taran’s bare skin pressed against her back. His arm wound around her waist. His fingers traced lazy patterns over her belly.

  They had lounged the day away, enjoying each other to the fullest, as if each touch, each caress would never be enough. Now, with his breath dusting her shoulder, she reveled in the simple closeness.

  Yet her mind pulled to darker thoughts that threatened to override contentment. She
could no longer sense even the merest trace of her wards. Not that she needed them against Taran. But their absence signaled Drandar’s awareness of her betrayal. Which meant she’d sealed her fate by telling Taran what she’d sworn not to reveal. Even if they managed to recreate Nyamah’s original words and give Taran freedom, even if he chose life over the death he yearned for, they would never know this quiet intimacy again. Drandar would take her. She would spend eternity as his slave.

  “I should go,” Taran murmured into her hair.

  She clutched at his hand. “No.” Even more than she hated the idea of losing a single moment together, she needed him to stay. Drandar wouldn’t dare make an appearance so long as Taran held his immortal strength. He was too weakened by the seven successful rituals, and if Taran called on Isolde, Drandar would have the fight of his life on his hands.

  No, Drandar would wait until she was alone. Unprotected. Vulnerable to his dark will.

  “Stay with me.” Twisting to look at Taran, she drew his hand up her body and pressed his palm to her breast. Gentle fingers closed around the soft flesh. “Wake me if the curse plagues you overmuch. As you used to do.” With her free hand, she cupped the side of his handsome face. “Please don’t leave me tonight.”

  He closed his eyes slowly, and etchings of pain shadowed his features. A low, nearly inaudible groan rumbled in the back of his throat. When he lifted his lashes again, sorrow reflected in his dark eyes. “I am…afraid…Solène.”

  His rough whisper shot daggers into her heart. In all their time together, he had never confessed fear, never let down his prideful walls and admitted something so honest. She arched her back and rose off the mattress to press her lips to his. “There’s nothing to fear.”

  Desperation fringed the clasp of his mouth, the tightness of his fingers against her breast. But with a shuddering intake of air, he gave a hesitant nod, and sank into the pillows once more. “You should call your wards…in case.”