Leather rustled as she climbed into his lap. Her pert bottom settled snuggly over his quickly growing erection. Her eyes never left his. The pupils had expanded across the blue irises until they were nothing more than dark pits.
“What ... what are you doing?”
Her lips parted, red and inviting. “I want you,” she whispered. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”
For two full heartbeats, Gideon couldn’t breathe. Confusion mingled with a sudden burst of euphoria before suspicion and confusion regained once more. His gaze flitted to the open cell door, half expecting Magnus to be standing there, grinning. Even while Gideon knew his brother was the last person to mysteriously grow a funny bone, he couldn’t help wonder if this was some elaborate joke. Although, he knew better than to think Valkyrie would simply go along with it.
Something was clearly wrong.
“You need to stop.” Even to his own ears, his resolve was weak. His voice was barely a whisper. He prayed to whoever was listening that it would be enough to jolt her back to her senses. “Valkyrie, stop.”
She stilled. Her head tilted a fraction of an inch to the side and she regarded him with a mixture of bemuse and hurt. Gideon hated himself immediately.
“You don’t want me?”
He wanted to laugh. He would have if he hadn’t been too busy trying to talk sense into her.
“I think this isn’t you.”
“Doesn’t it feel like me?” Her statement was followed by the slow roll of her hips.
Gideon hissed through his teeth. The back of his skull struck the stone wall with a dull crack that he didn’t even feel.
“Damn it!”
It wasn’t until he felt the soft whisper of her warm breath caress the curve of his chin and mouth that he realized he had closed his eyes. They snapped open and he found himself mere inches from her mouth. From her. She was so close he could count her lashes. So close he could almost taste her with every exhale she made.
“Stop.” The single whisper hummed with desperation. It barely made it to his lips.
Valkyrie seemed immune to his pleas. She continued to torment him, pulling closer until there was but a sliver between them. Gideon wondered if maybe he’d fallen asleep. If this was one of the many dreams he’d had of her. Yet he knew it wasn’t. It felt too real. Her scent was too real. The warmth of her skin, the brush of her hair against the side of his face ... it was real. She was real.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he choked out. “If you do this, there will be no turning back.”
Valkyrie closed her eyes, and he knew he’d lost her.
Then she kissed him and he lost himself.
He lost the world and everything in it.
There was no logic, no rational thought. He was a bodiless mass floating in an infinite inferno of heat and fire.
He gasped, the sweet pain excruciating. The white hot punch of agony nearly sent him plummeting into darkness had another wave of something equally scalding not taken its place, something fierce and unstoppable. It rode over him with a violence that burned through his veins. He snarled, a sound between rage and triumph. The shackles above his head rattled. The chains squealed under the force of his need, but they were dragon forged and nothing in the world could break draconian metal.
He was at her mercy.
He tried to draw away, to speak, to stop her before she did something she would hate him for in the morning, but Valkyrie would have none of it.
Her hands closed in his hair, tearing at roots as she pushed into him. She plundered his mouth as though she hated him. Something on her tongue tasted unnaturally sweet and it slipped from her into him, making him lightheaded and weak. More than that, it made his blood hot and his cock hurt with the need for release.
“Need you!” Her growl trembled with the severity of that need. Her hips bucked and rolled against the erection reaching through the loincloth for her. “Need you, Gideon!”
Lost in the madness, in her, Gideon threw himself blindly into what she was offering. Clothes were torn away. Somehow this was done without her ever leaving his lap, or his hungry mouth. Everything was a blur of anxious hands and greedy mouths. Everywhere her skin touched his was like hot iron burning into his flesh. The pain was horrible and beautiful all at the same time. The sear of it drove him, consumed him. He couldn’t stop. It was as though his very soul had been waiting for that moment and now that it had come to pass, not even God himself had the power to stop it.
Her hand reached between them. Her fingers closed around the rock hard length of his cock. His last remaining protest was swallowed by her, as was his groan when she raised her hips, lined him up with her opening and gingerly lowered herself down.
“Shit!”
Gideon sunk his teeth into the smooth slope of her shoulder as he was fed inch by inch into her tight, wet channel. Her body had gone rigid. The hands on his shoulders had tightened, the nails drawing blood. She was breathing hard and every inch of her was trembling. A choked sound of pain left her, and then he was fully sheathed within her and everything was forgotten except how warm she was and how her walls hugged him like a lover’s embrace.
“Valkyrie...”
Tentatively, she lifted her hips, drawing him out. The tight ring of her core gripped him in a protective embrace before she was forcing him back inside with unsteady pumps. Her movement was quick and sloppy, but they were determined. The movements of a person who had never had sex. But whatever she was doing, it seemed to be working for her; her delicious little moans burned into his ear. Her walls were slick and growing damper the faster she rocked against him.
“Gideon...” Her whimper dipped the world in a swirl of hot flames that devoured him. “Gideon, I’m coming...”
Her head dropped onto his shoulder as her body shuddered with her release. The fierce fist of her pussy, the intense ripple of her orgasm triggered the tight bundle of his climax. He sprayed his seeds deep inside her sated body in hot squirts. Her channel greedily sucked the last drop with her lingering muscle convulsions until there was nothing left.
“Kyrie?” He skimmed her temple with his lips. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t move.
“Val?”
She remained limp and unresponsive against his shoulder. It was only the slow and even rise and fall of her chest against his that eased his mind a fraction. He stayed still, mind reeling between what they’d done and what to do next. He knew staying in the cell was stupid, but he couldn’t reach the keys.
“Fuck!” he snarled.
A scuffle in the doorway had Gideon stiffening. His hands balled into useless fists only to relax when Magnus came into view, dressed once more in his usual dark getup. His eyebrows rose when he caught sight of Gideon sitting butt naked in the corner of the room with an unconscious Valkyrie slumped against his chest.
“Really? Here?” his brother blurted.
“It’s not what it looks like ... mostly.” Gideon frowned. “Shut up and give me your jacket.”
Magnus shrugged out of his coat and walking over to drape it carefully over Valkyrie.
“No!” Gideon said when Magnus started to scoop her up. There was no easy way to tell his brother he was still buried inside her. “Undo my hands.”
Frowning, Magnus reached for the keys and undid the cuffs. Gideon shook free and reached for the woman in his arms. Carefully, he lifted her up just enough to slip free. Valkyrie gasped in her sleep and gave a shiver that did not help with keeping matters under control.
Giving Magnus a nod, he let his brother scoop the sleeping woman up into his arms, careful to keep her bundled up while Gideon refastened his loincloth.
When finished, he took Valkyrie from the other man and waited as Magnus gathered her clothes up off the floor.
“What the hell happened?” Magnus demanded as they made their way out of the cell.
“I don’t fucking know!” Gideon snapped. “They put me down there and the next thing I know, Valkyrie wa
s all over me.”
“That doesn’t sound like Valkyrie,” Magnus mused.
“I know.” He shifted Valkyrie higher against his chest. “But no matter what I said, she wouldn’t stop.”
Magnus ceased walking. He turned to Gideon and raised a hand to lightly brushed Valkyrie’s hair off her sleeping face. Gideon watched in confusion as Magnus pressed the pad of his thumb to Valkyrie’s chin and nudged her mouth open.
“What are you doing?”
Magnus ignored him and lowered his head. He sniffed.
“Drosen.”
“What?”
Magnus straightened. “She was given drosen. It’s a drink young women are given on the eve of the awakening. It helps ... calm them and make them more susceptible to mating.”
Gideon recalled the pink drink the three punks had offered him. He remembered the addictive sweetness on Valkyrie’s tongue. He remembered the dark eyes on the draconian women, the way they’d stood on the street, waiting for a man to take them, all because of a drink.
“Valkyrie wouldn’t drink that stuff,” he murmured through stiff lips. “She must have been forced.” His arms tightened around her. “She looked so scared.”
Magnus looked away. He didn’t contradict, or pacify him, to which Gideon was grateful for. His fury was too tangible, too unstable. It wouldn’t stop him from hitting his brother if he tried to defend those people.
They walked through the castle, passing guards and party-goers in search of a quiet place to fuck. Most weren’t even bothering with rooms. Nearly every corner they passed was occupied by couples ... coupling. The sight of them, knowing what he now knew, turned Gideon’s stomach.
Magnus took them back to Gideon’s room. He shut the door behind them as Gideon moved swiftly to the bed and gently lay Valkyrie down. The coat flipped open along her hip and down one leg and the sight of it didn’t make his insides dissolve into hot ripples of lust. For once, it did the opposite. He felt cold and sick.
Shoving the corner back into place covering her, Gideon straightened. He looked across the great expense of the mattress to where his brother stood, expressionless and too still.
“You know what this means,” Gideon murmured quietly, and all he got in response was an equally quiet nod.
Turning away, he marched to the bathroom and soaked a hand towel in lukewarm water. He wrung it out and peered up at the gilded mirror suspended over the sink. His tired and furious self stared back. Strands of damp, gold hung limp over his brow. Others stood in tufts where Valkyrie had sunk her fingers into them and held on. Those memories didn’t elicit the happy glow he had always imagined they would draw.
Magnus had moved away from the bed and stood by the window. Gideon could see the side of his brother’s profile as he studied the night outside. His hands were clasped at his back and his posture was relaxed, but Gideon knew better; his brother was pissed.
“You know this will mean war,” Gideon remarked as he went to Valkyrie.
He didn’t need to check to know his brother would never look as Gideon brushed aside the coat and turned her off her side onto her back. The smear of blood between her thighs nearly broke him.
“We are already at war,” Magnus replied evenly. “This will only make it worse.”
Gideon didn’t reply as he cleaned his mate and redressed her, careful not to allow himself to dwell, careful not to linger too long on her skin, no matter how pointless that was now. He was careful not to stare. Somehow, mate or not, every part of that moment felt tainted, violated, and wrong.
“It’s not your fault,” Magnus murmured, still staring at the window.
Gideon said nothing. He tucked her blades into the tops of her boots and straightened. His own clothes lay where he had tossed them over a chair. He dressed quickly, his mind set on what he needed to do.
“Take Valkyrie,” he told the other man. “I want a word with her highness.”
“Gid—”
Flipping the collar of his coat, Gideon turned on his brother. “Take her.”
Without waiting for a response, Gideon charged to the doors and out. The hum of music and laughter continued to fill the place despite the hour. He wondered how long it would continue. How long would they drug their young women and pass them off to get impregnated by any warrior that would have them? That much he agreed with Valkyrie; the women were treated like cattle. They were drugged and raped and used as breeding stock, because in all his boasting, Kyros never once mentioned marriage to the girls they chose. And while Gideon never judged other cultures, he hated the draconian for everything they stood for.
The trip to the throne room was done without interception. No one stopped him, or asked why he was headed that way. He didn’t understand why until he reached the gold plated doors and found Kyros waiting for him. The sight of him seized the fury Gideon had kept in check the entire walk up and dosed it in gasoline. It exploded with a rage that seemed to burst off him in waves. It was a wonder Kyros couldn’t feel the burn of it.
He took a step forward, arm up, palm held open like a crossing guard. “The queen is not accepting—”
Gideon never slowed his pace, never so much as faltered. His anger rode him straight up to the other man, and with a swing that screamed up his arm like fire, he knocked the draconian off his feet. All five knuckles connected with Kyros’s jaw, snapping it shut and flinging his dark head back. Blood spewed from his mouth where Gideon was certain Kyros had taken a chunk from his own tongue. Then the bigger man was soaring backwards and slamming into the doors, cracking them open. The force of their collision with the walls behind them resounded like thunder throughout the corridor.
Gideon stormed forward just as Kyros smacked into the floor, a massive dark blur that skidded five, six, ten feet before coming to a screeching halt at the base of the queen’s golden throne, and her feet. Kyros didn’t move.
“What insolence is this?” the queen hissed.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Gideon retorted with every ounce of revulsion he could muster.
The queen’s nostrils flared. “How dare you—”
“You drugged Valkyrie,” he cut her off savagely. “You ruined her.”
Dark eyes narrowed and he didn’t miss the flicker of triumph in them. “I did nothing she did not bring upon herself, Caster. That girl is as foul and loathsome as her father. She got exactly what she deserves.”
Without thinking, Gideon took a dangerous step forward before he remembered his mother’s warning never to raise his hand to a woman, and what he yearned to do to the queen was so much more than just raise his hand. He balled them into fists instead. The queen gave them appraising glances, possibly contemplating just how much more she could push before he was on her. Gideon wanted to tell her not very much. He was barely in control.
“You have sentenced her to death,” he snarled. “Is that what she deserves?”
There was a shadow of surprise across her face before it was quickly gone and her chin had come up a notch in dismiss. “Perhaps it is time that Arild Devereaux learns what humility is; once he has lost his daughter—”
“He will learn nothing from this,” Gideon said. “Do you honestly believe his daughters mean anything to him? He will behead her himself and walk right over her body afterwards without a single glance back. And I won’t allow that. He will not come near her because, because of you, she now belongs to me in every possible way and I will fight for her until the day I die, and when Arild comes for her, I will go to war to protect her and I will come for you.” He took a slow measured step forward, stopping when the toes of his boots struck the bottom step of the dais. He lowered his voice. “You may have strength in numbers, your highness, but I will slice through your last warrior until my blade is at your throat. You have put my mate’s life in danger and I will not rest until you and Arild Devereaux are bloody pieces at my feet.”
“What did you do?”
Gideon ignored his brother’s question. He scooped Valkyrie from
the other man’s arms, cradled her close to his chest and started the long process back through the jungle. Somehow, the trip seemed effortless, like he could sense every branch, root, and rock before he even came upon it. His strides were strong and confident. Maybe it was the hot stream of blinding fury that continued to pulse like an agitated heartbeat, but he made it to the road without faltering once.
Neither he nor Magnus spoke as they walked to Gideon’s car. He slid Valkyrie into the backseat, rolled his coat under her head, and slammed the door shut behind her. Magnus was already in the passenger’s seat, waiting for answers.
“She’s alive,” was all Gideon was willing to part with.
“That wasn’t my question.”
Gideon didn’t answer him. He started the engine and shot them into the night.
Valkyrie stayed asleep throughout the entire drive, and even when Gideon turned down the path towards Final Judgment, she remained in peaceful slumber. Gravel crunched beneath gravel, filling the deafening silence within the car with its sound. Gideon could almost feel his brother’s scrutinizing gaze boring into him through the darkness, could feel the weight of his thoughts pouring through the space between them like toxic gas. He almost couldn’t wait to get home and away.
Instead, he drew into the spot, cut the engine, and sat staring at the glowing patches of light cut into the night from the windows of his home. The night had already ended. His father would have sent the demons back and the place would be filled only with the people Gideon loved most, yet he hesitated, his guilt overpowering his desire to run inside and throw himself into his mother’s arms.
“Take Valkyrie inside,” he told the silent man next to him.
“Where are you going?”
He had no idea. Anywhere but inside.
“Just go.”
“What happened wasn’t—”
“Go!” he snarled. The horn blared under the violent attack of his fist.
Magnus never so much as flinched, nor did he speak again. He slid out of the car. The entire frame rattled under the slam of the door behind him. Gideon didn’t watch as the back door was opened and Valkyrie was gathered up in his brother’s arms. He continued to stare at the wheel, long after Magnus had taken her inside and the entire world was a muffled hum in the confines of his car.
Gideon's Promise (Sons of Judgment Book 2) Page 33
