He took his time and slid his hand between their bodies to stimulate her until he felt that she was almost ready, and only then did he thrust more quickly and more firmly inside her. As she came, crying out loudly, he let himself go, too, and filled her with his seed. He knew straight away that he would be fertile and deep joy filled him at the thought of having conceived a child with her.
*
Coreena lay cuddling into his arms and felt completely fulfilled for the first time in her life. She had been happy for most of her life and could not complain. Her childhood was full of beautiful memories and although she missed her parents desperately, she was happy with her work in advertising. But something had always been missing. She had never been able to say what it was, but now she knew. It was he that had made her whole. There was still so much that she did not understand. What had happened in the underground car park? How had he even been there? Why did he not want to tell her what had happened? And how did he get into her flat? In spite of all the unanswered questions she knew suddenly that he belonged to her. With this knowledge in her heart she fell asleep in his arms.
Chapter 9
When Coreena woke up, an irresistible smell hit her. It was of freshly-made coffee. Not instant coffee. No! Real, freshly-ground coffee.
‘But I don’t have any freshly-ground coffee.’
Puzzled, she sat up and shook her head. After a while she got out of bed and slipped into her dressing gown, then she went down the hall to the kitchen. When she suddenly heard voices, she stood still. Who was Volcan speaking to? She heard an unfamiliar voice, which meant that someone else must be in the kitchen. If Volcan were on the telephone, then she would not be able to hear someone else talking. Curious, she walked on. The kitchen door was slightly open and she saw a good-looking man sitting on her kitchen table. He had blond, shoulder-length hair and he was sun-tanned. ‘Like a surfer,’ she thought.
“The danger isn’t over,” said the blond man. “Precisely now, when you almost have her, the evil powers will try especially hard to force a wedge between you.”
“I know,” said Volcan seriously. “I won’t let her out of my sight again. I’ve been careless. I should never have left her alone. I was only in Ignigena for half an hour. Damn it!”
“It’s all turned out OK, though,” said the blond man comfortingly.
“It’s turned out OK? He hit her and nearly cut her throat open, and she’s traumatised. She’s afraid.”
Volcan was propping himself up on the work surface, his head buried between his shoulders.
“There won’t be any more attacks,” said the blond man. “I’ll keep my eyes and ears open now, too. And your little one will be OK again. You’re there for her and that’s what she needs now.”
Volcan turned to the blond man again. His look was of fury.
“But still, sooner or later she’ll start asking me questions that I can’t answer – that I can’t answer yet.”
The blond man grinned.
“So make more of an effort so that she finally says the three magic words.”
“Unfortunately I’m not a sweet talker like you.”
“I was actually referring to your qualities in bed,” laughed the blond man. “Shag her properly so that she loses her senses and she’ll soon be eating out of your hand. Should I give you a few of my special tricks?”
“No, thank you,I don’t need lessons!” snarled Volcan. “But still, she’s not the sort of woman who can be won over that easily. And the matter of the attack also stands between us. I can’t give her any explanations and sooner or later she’ll want some. No matter how well I…”
Volcan took a few sips of his coffee and looked out of the window. Suddenly a smile came across his face.
“What is it that you haven’t told me yet?” asked the blond man.
“I don’t know what you mean!”
“By the elements! Do you really think that you can lie to me? What is it that’s making you smile so dreamily? It has nothing to do with the little one. There’s something else.”
“You’re right. Although it does have something to do with her actually, because, after all, she is fifty per cent involved.”
“A successor to the throne?” asked the blond man.
Volcan shook his head.
“Close, but not quite. A princess.”
“Congratulations!” said the blond man, and patted Volcan on his shoulder. “But I’m guessing that she doesn’t know about that yet? Am I right?”
“Of course she doesn’t know. How should I explain to her that I know that she has conceived a child. She would only ask more questions.”
The blond man sighed.
“I hope it’ll be less complicated with my chosen one.”
“I can only advise you to enjoy your year of freedom,” smirked Volcan.
“That’s exactly what I intend to do. That’s why I’d like to go now. Of course you’ll want to wake your little one up with a coffee now. With some women love goes through the stomach, too. Make her a good breakfast.”
“I will do, when you’ve finally gone.”
“I’m gone!” said the blond man and he disappeared before Coreena’s eyes.
A man who disappeared into thin air – that was too much for her. Everything went black and she fell to the ground.
*
Volcan jumped when he heard the dull thud. He went to the door and saw Coreena lying motionless on the floor. How long had she been standing there?
“Damn it!”
He rushed to her side and lifted her carefully into his arms. He was not so concerned about her fainting as about the fact that she had probably heard much too much. Now he really had some explaining to do.
In the lounge he laid her carefully on the sofa and she opened her eyes, blinking. The pain in her eyes broke his heart.
“Who are you?” she whispered weakly. “What’s going on here?”
“I would love to explain everything to you, but I can’t. Not before…,” Volcan began to explain, indecisive as to how he should continue.
“Before what?” asked Coreena. “What are these three magic words that I have to say?”
“I can’t tell you – it has to come from you. They have to be meant.”
Coreena looked at him searchingly. She saw despair in his eyes. If she could only, finally, get in behind his secret. She could make no sense of what he and this blond man had been discussing. She only knew that he had awakened a hunger in her that only he could satisfy. It was only with him that she was truly alive. Only now that she knew the difference did she realise what an empty life she had so far lived. She did not want to let him go again.
“I love you,” she whispered quietly and raised her hand to put it on his cheek. “Is that what you need to hear?”
“Yes,” he answered just as quietly.
He took her hand in both hands and kissed it on the inside. Then he took her hand and put it to his chest. She felt his heart beat pulsating against the palm of her hand, then the spot where his heart lay lit up and became warm. Instinctively she wanted to pull her hand away, but he held it tightly.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “Look at me.”
He looked deep into her eyes and she relaxed.
The pulsating of his heart grew stronger. It felt as if she were holding his heart directly in her hand.
“Yours for all time. I promise to love you, to honour you, to protect you and to be true to you till the end of our days.”
The pulsating became weaker and the light went out.
“What was that? Who are you really?”
“I am Volcan, the Guardian of Fire. There are four guardians, one for each element. The blond sunny-boy that you saw in the kitchen today is Aerios, the Guardian of Air.”
“But what… what has all that got to do with me? What do you want from me?”
“You’re my chosen one. It is your destiny to become my queen.”
“Queen?” Again, a vague memory.
Volcan opened her dressing gown and took hold of her pendant.
“I visited you in your dreams when you were just a little girl. Then, after your sixth birthday I gave you this. Through this chain I could always be connected to you and sense if you were in danger or if things were not going well for you. I was always there for you until your sixteenth birthday. After that Naios, the Guardian of Water guarded you. It is only now that I have been permitted to be near you again, in order to win you over.”
“My mother gave me this chain,” Coreena contradicted.
“That’s what I made you think. You had to forget me, so I made you and everyone else believe that the chain was a gift from your mother.”
“How can I believe that?” asked Coreena in despair. “I don’t understand all that.”
“Can you think of events in your life when strange things have happened with fire?”
“Yes. That’s happened several times. For example, when someone in my class made me angry. He was always hassling me, and once, when he was particularly bad, his trousers suddenly burst into flames.” She laughed at the memory. “He hopped around like mad. Then he jumped into the pond and when he came out he was covered in water plants. Everyone laughed at him. After that he never bothered me again.” She looked at him in disbelief. “But that can’t have been you who did that, can it?”
“Guilty as charged,” said Volcan, laughing. “Do you remember the burning car, too?”
Coreena looked at him, bewildered.
“You really know about that?”
“Of course I know about it. After all, it was me who set the car on fire.”
“But why?”
“Because the person sitting in it was watching you. He was a listed child molester. He had plans on you. He had probably been manipulated by the evil powers, too, as he had specifically sought you out.”
“The evil powers?” she whispered.
“They want to destroy our union. If I have no life partner, then I’ll lose the power over my element. It would fall into the hands of Exesor the Destroyer. Up until now fatal fires only break out because of the negligence or malice of human beings. If Exesor gets the control of fire, there will be inexplicable fires with huge losses of human life.”
“What happens now? I still don’t understand. I’ve seen strange things, but it is difficult for me to believe all that and I have no idea what is now expected of me.”
“In not quite three weeks, when the moon is full, we will marry and go to Ignigena, my kingdom.”
“And… what if I don’t want that?” she asked, her heart pounding.
“Don’t you want to be my queen, then?” he asked huskily.
“I… it’s all come…”
“As a surprise?”
She nodded.
“We still have three weeks. Maybe you’ll be more certain by then.”
He kissed her gently and she sighed quietly onto his mouth, then she put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her.
“What would you like me to do, princess?”
“Make love to me!” she said in a whisper.
“Your wish is my command,” he murmured. “Hold on tightly to me.”
“What?”
“Trust me. Just hold on tightly.”
She embraced him tightly and suddenly they were in her bedroom, on her bed.
“How do you do that?”
He grinned.
“My secret. For now!”
“I could get used to this,” she said, laughing quietly.
Volcan looked at her searchingly.
“Coreena. Do you trust me?”
“I…” She looked at him, her eyes wide. “Yes, I trust you.”
“I would really like to make love to you as the man that I really am. This is not my real form.”
Her eyes became bigger, as she looked at him in disbelief. Although it had been proven to her in several ways that something supernatural was happening here, she still had problems seeing, in Volcan, anything other than the man that she had grown to know and love. An extraordinary man, but he was still only a man, wasn’t he?
“You… you’re not going to change into a warty, green demon or something, are you?” she asked, half joking, half afraid. With bated breath she awaited his reply.
He smiled and shook his head gently.
“No. You’ve already seen me before in my true form, when you were a child, and you were not shocked by my appearance then. “
“I guess that before I agree to become your wife I should see you the way you really are, shouldn’t I? So why not start with that. Eyes closed and off you go.”
“I love you,” he said, and transformed.
She suppressed a cry, not because she thought he looked terrible, but because she now knew how come she had seen the person with the long, red hair after she had been attacked. It had been Volcan after all. Only his eyes were still the same. They were not glowing. Volcan looked even more attractive in his true form than in his human form. He seemed to be even bigger, even more muscular and his face looked still more striking.
“I remember now,” she said suddenly, and she raised a hand to move his hair aside and look at his pointed ear.
“Yes, you’ve done exactly that before, princess.”
“It was also you that I saw – the person with the red hair and glowing eyes. Your eyes were glowing, weren’t they? I didn’t imagine that, did I?”
“No, you didn’t. What you see before you now is Volcan, the man. What you saw then was the warrior. Look at me and don’t be afraid. I would never hurt you, OK?”
She nodded.
“Look into my eyes. You should know both – the man and the warrior.”
His eyes flickered as if flames were being reflected in them and then they began to glow. Coreena found the warrior just as attractive as the man. She was no longer afraid of him. She trusted him.
He bent down to her, his glowing eyes boring into her. It seemed as if he would set her whole body alight with the fire that was burning in his eyes. She longed to feel him inside her and to surrender to his passion. Her body was trembling in anticipation of what his hungry look promised.
“Can you bear any more? Can you love the warrior in me?” he murmured huskily.
She nodded and pulled his head down to her. Yes! She wanted him. She had never wanted anything so much in her life as she wanted this breathtakingly wild warrior.
His kiss was wild and unbridled. He groaned, rubbing himself longingly against her. His arousal was more than noticeable. She did not need to look down on him to know that he was even bigger than before. But it did not frighten her. She knew instinctively that she would be able to take him. They belonged together, they were one. She was his chosen one, his life partner.
She moved beneath him, groaning. Every touch sent hot shudders of desire through her body. Her blood seemed to have already transformed into glowing lava. What else was one to expect when being made love to by the Guardian of Fire.
Volcan’s hair tickled her pleasantly as he slid down her and covered every inch of her skin with hot kisses. His tongue lasciviously circled her navel and she writhed against him longingly. She wanted to feel him more deeply where her longing for him was greatest.
“Please,” she uttered breathlessly.
“Shhh! Keep still. I’m going to make you melt with desire today. I’ll make sure that you never doubt again who your lord and master is,” he murmured, as he spread her legs.
Her pussy ached in expectation, and as the tip of his tongue parted her wet lips and entered her, a hoarse cry came from her and she reared up. The desire that he aroused was so intense that it was almost unbearable. He teased her by going very close to her pearl but not quite touching it. But that was exactly where she really needed him. Coreena felt like a small ship in a raging sea. She was tossed this way and that by the waves of desire. She whimpered, wanting to reach the end at last, and at the same time she wished that it would never end.
When she was just about to explode, he firmly stroked her most sensitive spot a few times, and she came so hard that, for a moment, everything went black.
He took hold of her hair.
“Stay with me,” he murmured imperiously into her ear. “You’re no longer a normal, human woman. You’re my chosen one. You’re strong. Stay with me.”
She blinked, then looked at him. His glowing eyes were fixed on her. Then he kissed her, slowly, provocatively and finally erotically, until she quietly groaned.
“I will take you now, Coreena. Open up for me and look at me when I come to you.”
“She felt his enormous erection pulsate against her female entrance. Holding his gaze, she opened her legs wider and he slid slowly inside her. It seemed almost impossible to her that she could make way for him. He was too big. She wanted to close her eyes.
“No, stay with me. Trust me. You’re made for me. You can take me. Relax.”
After what seemed like an eternity he had slid, bit by bit, inside her, and now he filled her completely. She was not used to this and it was overwhelming. A groan came from his lips, as he began to move inside her. She reached out to touch his chest, where his heart was beating wildly. He had thrown back his head and a wild, determined look lay across his face. She had enjoyed sleeping with the human Volcan, but it was nothing compared with what she was experiencing now. Even without him telling her she knew that she was the only woman who had slept with the warrior. It was her privilege.
“I love you,” she sobbed, overcome by intense emotions.
He turned his head to look at her. Then he bent down and kissed her with consuming passion, whilst he pushed inside her quicker and quicker, harder and harder.
“Coreena,” he said huskily. “Come with me, Coreena.”
She clung onto him. Her nails dug deeply into his flesh. He took revenge by biting her on the neck. She shuddered with desire. She bucked as the waves were thrown over her. Volcan uttered a deep groan as he lost himself in her.
Chapter 10
Volcan's Fire (Guardians of The Elements #1) Page 7
