I love you.
I heard his voice in my head, and whether it was real or imagined, it made me smile as I tried to quiet my heaving breaths. In the past, I had always shied away from being totally bare before a new lover, but with Darius, there was no shame. No reason to hide. We belonged to each other.
My eyes drifted closed, and I shuddered as he lowered himself between my parted thighs. Each tantalizing kiss placed, almost strategically, along my thighs only served to torment me further, to rile me up again with no hope of release in sight. I whined softly, my hand shooting down to steer him where I most desperately needed him. But he ducked out of the way with a dark chuckle, the sound washing over me, his breath hot against my skin.
“Darius,” I whimpered, my hips grinding down toward him. I caught him smirking as he peered up at me, his eyes darker than the storm clouds outside.
“Impatient, are you?”
“I can do it myself, you know, if you don’t hurry up.”
His smirk grew. “I very much doubt that, sweetheart.”
Then, before I could get my retort in, his mouth captured the helm of my womanhood, and fireworks shot through me. I arched up, moaning, my eyes practically rolling back in my head as he teased me with his extremely talented tongue. Over and over, his ravished me with his attentions, positioning my legs over his shoulders for better access. Just as I was on the verge of a climax, my skin prickled with goosebumps and my muscles clenched, ready to fall off that cliff, he moved lower and speared me with his tongue. I cried out, bucking against him as his thumb picked up where his mouth had left off, rubbing me, tormenting me with wild abandon. His breath was like fire, lapping at my skin, washing over me with a crackling, spitting flame that the actual fire in the hearth was no match against.
He brought me to the edge and back, over and over again, delighting in my cries, and holding me still with one hand stretched up to cover my breasts. The unending thrust of his tongue, the relentless gentle flick of his thumb over my most sensitive spot—it was enough to drive me mad. But I eventually pitched forward instead, tumbling into the abyss with a smile on my face as a powerful climax took hold. With the might of a hurricane, it pounded through me, striking me blind, deaf, and dumb to the rest of the world—all except for him. Toes curled, I cried his name, riding out the pleasurable waves as he prolonged them with slow, tantalizing sweeps of his tongue.
As I slowly came back into my body, I felt Darius kissing his way up it, until eventually our lips met in a crash of unbridled need. While the climax had satisfied one craving, it had left another, far larger one, in its place. More. More. More. All of him, all of me—together, or not at all.
I swallowed my surprised cry when he slipped an arm under me and scooped me up. Still tasting myself on his lips, his tongue, I threaded my fingers into his beastly mane. A soft shudder slipped out when my back collided with the wall, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, ankles locked behind him, as I cupped his face and held him to me. If I could help it, I would never stop kissing Darius—not until we were both gasping for our very last breath. Outside, the storm raged on—rain hammering the hall so masterfully that I could almost feel each droplet through the stone.
For a moment, I almost wanted to be out in it. Right in the thick of things. Just me, my dragon, and the might of Mother Nature. I suspected our union, our moment, would outweigh hers any day.
“I love you, Kaye Allister,” Darius hissed against my lips, reaching down to free himself from those gloriously clingy boxers. “And I will honor you as my mate, the woman the fates have aligned me with, until my dying day.”
He smothered my words before they escaped with another kiss, his tongue thrusting between my lips in tandem with him pushing inside of me. I cried out, the sound swallowed between us, as he filled me, stretched me in all the right ways—made me feel whole for the first time in all my life. I tugged at his hair, desperate for him to move when he stilled inside of me, groaning as the renewed throb of slowly mounting pleasure began again inside me. Darius nipped at my lower lip in response, then snatched both of my wrists and pinned them back against the wall. I wrenched my lips free of his, grinning sinfully, ready to fight with the only strength I had in that moment: my words.
But he stole those away too, bucking hard against me before capturing my mouth once more. His thrusts grew harder, faster, more insistent, and all I could do was cling to him for the ride. My hands curled to fists as that little nugget of pleasure in my core tightened, twisted, and thrummed with the possibility of more. I’d feel it tomorrow, the bruising force of his hips pounding against mine, the crushing grip of his hands wrapped around my wrists—and I’d relish it. Savor it. Long for it again. I rocked up to meet him as best I could, sucking on his tongue, reminding him that I was my own dragon, my own fae—that I wouldn’t be conquered, but cherished. He dominated our pace, taking me heatedly against the wall, but I controlled our kiss, my teeth snaring his bottom lip and drawing a satisfying growl from him.
We plummeted over the edge together this time, first Darius spilling himself into me, then me falling after as our hips ground together to prolong the ecstasy. Our breaths fell like thunder, but we held each other as if the world was ending. As I inhaled him, I tasted his fire, felt it course through me—felt it breathe life into me unlike anything I’d ever felt before. When our eyes met, his wild and dangerous, mine focused and captivated, I knew he felt it too.
Without a word, Darius hoisted me up suddenly, adjusting his grip, and carried me to the door. Before I could protest, he walked us outside, totally buck naked. Something mixed between a laugh and a cry jumped out of me at the feel of the first droplets of rain, quickly smothered by the thousands more. Cold. Revitalizing. Thunder rumbled in the distance after a bolt of lightning illuminated the sky.
“You think you have another round in you, sweetheart?” Darius whispered in my ear. When I bit my lip and grinned, he chuckled. “I thought we could use a change of scenery.”
“Fucking in the middle of a crazy summer storm? What kind of girl do you take me for?”
He smirked. “I take you for my girl…”
I blinked the rainwater from my eyes, so in love with him that it hurt, and kissed him.
Chapter 14
I awoke to the feel of someone, or something, tapping my forehead. Either this was a very vivid dream, or Darius had a death wish. Groaning, keeping my eyes clenched shut, I swatted at whatever was harassing me—but hit nothing. The tapping stopped. Pleased, I snuggled deeper into the pillow, a pillow that smelled so strongly of Darius that it was like a drug. Beside me, my dragon’s breathing hitched briefly, then quickly evened out.
It must have been nothing.
The lingering memory of a dream.
No dreams, Kaye. Right. I couldn’t recall having dreams, even though I should have. After all Darius and I did last night, I definitely should have had some pretty awesome dreams, frankly. But in that moment, I remembered hitting the pillow after six amazing climaxes, both in and around Darius’s mountaintop hall, and then it was black nothingness for the rest of the night.
Another tap-tap-tap in the center of my forehead. “Kaye?”
My eyes snapped open, the voice instantly recognizable, and I sucked in a panicked gasp at the sight of Aden’s face about an inch from mine. The djinn’s black eyebrows lifted, and his thin mouth curved into a smirk.
“G’morning, sleepyhead.” He cocked his head to the side. “That was like waking the dead… You two have a satisfying reunion?”
The wiggle of his eyebrows wasn’t exactly subtle.
I swallowed hard, as my sluggishly sleepy mind tried to process whether this was a dream or a very cruel reality. My inner voice fired off alarm bells left, right, and center. Definitely real.
So, I responded with a scream—one that would certainly wake the dead. Aden scrambled back, his eyes wide as a huge, burly, naked figure leapt over me. Within seconds Darius had the djinn tackled to the ground.
> And proceeded to kick the living crap out of him.
Well, kick was the wrong word—Darius was a fist man, it would appear. As I sat up with the blankets drawn up to hide my modesty, my body sore from last night’s activities, I watched in both horror and satisfaction as my dragon pummeled the djinn into the ground.
I had to give it to Darius… He’d been asleep beside me only seconds earlier, and the fact that he could snap into action so fast was beyond impressive. Never would I have to fear an intruder breaking into our bedroom. Those lightning fast reflexes would take care of anyone who dared try.
“That’s the djinn!” I shouted over the commotion. “The one who took me!”
“I know,” Darius snarled, his face scrunched in rage, his fists still flying. “I remember him from the spell.”
The militia witches had apparently produced an image of Darius while Catriona and I were working on locating Jasmine. From the way Darius manhandled Aden, I could only assume he’d been present for that feature film.
“Kaye,” Aden barked, finally managing to block a few blows—though he didn’t appear to be trying very hard. Maybe he thought he deserved a bit of a beating, which would serve him right. “Get your fucking naked mate off me!”
“Darius, try not to kill him,” I mused as I held Aden’s gaze, hoping mine looked as icy as it felt. “I’m sure all that blood will be hard to scrub off the floor.”
“You know I could get out of this,” the djinn fired back, and I straightened at the sight of his hand slowly succumbing to that blue djinn fog I’d seen before.
“Darius.” I tried to keep the fear out of my voice, but I knew Aden was right. If he operated at even half his full capacity, the djinn could probably wipe the entire Sanctius clan off the map. No idea why their species ever restrained themselves. So much power. So much possibility. “Darius, stop.”
“Just a few more hits,” my dragon grunted, landing one right in the middle of Aden’s face in his moment of distraction. At the sound of something crunching, or maybe cracking, followed shortly by Aden’s cry of pain, Darius retreated. He loomed over the djinn, hands curled to fists, chest heaving. If looks could kill, Aden would have been six feet under by now, and when Darius glanced back at me for a split-second, even I feared him. “I caught his scent the second you screamed.”
“Ever consider hiring yourself out as a bloodhound?” Aden sat up slowly, dark purple blood splattered across his face. He fiddled with his nose, squishing it between his fingers. I wrinkled my face at the sound of broken cartilage and bone being manipulated. Seconds later, his nose seemed to heal on its own, expanding to its usual size, though blood continued to dribble from each nostril.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded, drawing all my magic into my palms as subtly as I could. The smirk on Aden’s lips suggested I was unsuccessful, but I was ready to fight fire with fire if I had to—and it was probably good that he knew it. “Do you have a death wish?”
“As I understand it, that’s the usual assumption when people first meet me.” He chuckled, and I noticed Darius’s fist tighten. “I suppose I just ooze a natural charm.”
I rolled my eyes and muttered, “That’s one way to put it.”
Aden’s sneering sort of smile had the same enraging effect on Darius that it had on me, and my dragon lurched forward, fist cocked as if to hit him again. The djinn sprung nimbly to the side, hands up.
“Ah, ah, ah, dragon,” he sneered. “Would you finally like to experience the bite of my poison? It seems only fair, given how often your mate has—”
“Stop,” I barked, then clambered out of the bed, the bed that I had wanted to spend the morning lazily making love in with Darius, and grabbed one of my dragon’s shirts. I threw it on to cover my nudity, the shirt stopping about mid-thigh, and positioned myself between the two men. “Tell me what you want, Aden. I won’t ask again.”
Those black eyes darted between me and Darius, before finally settling on me as the djinn sighed. “Truce?”
“What?” I balked.
“I never wanted to hurt you, Kaye,” he told me, and I felt Darius’s temper start to boil again behind me. “Jasmine has my daughter captive. She’s had her this whole time to ensure my compliance with her ridiculous demands. She… My sweet girl is a hybrid too, which is why I know so much about your kind. It’s why I respect them as much as I do.”
“Lies,” Darius snarled, and I held up my arm to block him when he surged forward. “Djinns are known for their pretty words and tricks.”
“We are,” Aden agreed, darting back a few steps, his hands still up but no longer glowing with the thrum of his power. “I’ll agree to that. I tricked you, Kaye. I did it over and over again, but I only did it to save my daughter. I would level whole cities for her,” his hands pulsed blue suddenly, his eyes almost impossibly black, “but Jasmine has her tucked away. I won’t risk her life.”
“Kaye, you can’t seriously—”
“The girl in the mirror’s vision,” I said suddenly, the image of the shadowy figure springing to mind. Blinking hard, I faced Darius. “Remember? We thought she might be tied up…”
“You saw her?” Aden asked—choked, more like. “Is she all right? Was she hurt?”
“It was hard to tell,” I said, noting the way his hands trembled. “We saw her in the vision of a witch’s black mirror. Our focus was Jasmine… But she looked tied up.”
Aden turned away, his head bowed and his hands shimmering dark blue. He appeared to be attempting to control himself, his eyes clenched shut and his jaw tight. I glanced at Darius, who watched the djinn like a hawk. When his eyes met mine, I cocked my head to the side, wordlessly asking for his opinion. A slight shrug was his response, which was fair. Darius didn’t know Aden.
Then again, neither did I.
But I had noticed, during our misadventures, that Aden responded emotionally when pressed about what Jasmine had taken from him. At the time, I had assumed it might be treasure or a valuable artifact of his own, and that his response was linked to his wounded pride. If this was true, that Jasmine had taken his daughter captive, then I was way off-base. Aden’s desperation stemmed from a father’s innate desire to keep his child safe. Plus, the idea that she was a hybrid certainly explained Aden’s ardent fascination with them. The thought of there being someone else like me, someone tangible, unlike the figures in the wall art, made my stomach twist with excitement. I sighed softly. As interesting as the news was, if true, it still complicated things.
“Tell me everything,” I ordered. “From the top. From the time Jasmine took her until now. The truth, Aden. It’s the only way we’ll help you.”
“Kaye,” Darius said sharply, and I met his stormy gaze.
“It’s a child, Darius,” I whispered. “We need to at least entertain the idea.”
“Jasmine came to see me with one of her uncle’s old lieutenants,” Aden said softly, glaring at the hearth where our fire had once raged, strong and true against last night’s summer storm. “She wanted my services—”
“As an assassin?”
He nodded. “But I didn’t want the job. Capturing you… It sounded boring. So, she took my little girl while we were having our meeting… Jasmine’s warlock brute threatened her. I had no choice but to concede.”
“Djinns are powerful,” I countered. “Couldn’t you have just killed them?”
“It was too risky at the time. If there was crossfire and I accidentally…” He swallowed hard, then grimaced. “I’d never be able to forgive myself.”
“So, you decided to kidnap me in exchange for your daughter’s life,” I stated, working through his reasoning in my head. “Was the artifact even necessary?”
“I may have told… a few white lies regarding the artifact,” Aden said. He offered up a familiar impish grin when my gaze narrowed. As Darius began pacing behind me, perhaps needing to move so he didn’t take another swing at Aden, I listened to the djinn’s tale, searching for ways to poke hol
es in it—and coming up emptier than usual.
Apparently, Jasmine did want the artifact, but the purpose of the artifact was destruction, not protection. Aden and I were supposed to go through the hybrid-only trials, collect the artifact, then return to Jasmine, where she planned to drain my lifeblood to activate the artifact, and thus destroying all shifters.
“Hybrid blood is the one way to activate the artifact,” Aden told me, leaning back against a boarded-up window with his arms crossed, “and Jasmine had a very specific shifter in mind to drain. However, she was furious when I returned without you. As far as she knows, that’s why I’m here now… to kidnap you a second time before she loses her patience and kills Marie instead.”
I looked at him sharply, noting the way his expression darkened. He’d slipped up and given her name. Marie. Names had power in the supernatural community, particularly amongst faes. Lucky for him, I had no intention of using his own child against him.
“Warning your mate was part of her grand plan to draw all the shifter clans together again,” Aden continued slowly. “Her goal is to use your blood to activate the artifact, then wipe out all those who gathered to oppose her in one fell swoop.” He paused for a moment, his stare seeming to focus on something very far away. Then he cleared his throat and met my eye. “I am sorry for involving you in this. I was a fool to let my guard down in her presence.”
“You’d do anything to protect your daughter,” I muttered, ignoring Darius’s incredulous scoff. “I get it.”
“But I’ll not let her win,” Aden insisted, pushing off the wall and taking two steps toward me—before a sharp throat clearing from Darius made him stop. “I have a plan to stop her before she can even power the weapon.”
“But you gave her the weapon. You went back to her and—”
“She believes I handed over the artifact, yes.” Aden’s grin turned twisted and cruel. “No one knows what the artifacts looks like… She swallowed the bait, along with my groveling and begging. It was quite the performance.”
Magic Blaze: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Shifting Magic Book 3) Page 13
