by Ciana Stone
“Oh… damn. You’re hot.”
“Mmm… do it.”
Once. Twice. Three times he rammed himself in to the hilt. His chest crushed against hers, pinning her to the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist and spurred him on with her heels drumming against the back of his legs..
Between John Luke’s fierce hip-action and his muscular chest and torso pinning her, breaths were fast and shallow. But Ily held her own. Her thighs were clamped around his middle like a python. One hand still held a fist-full of the back of his shirt while the other curled into the base of his skull with fingers digging in.
To hell with all that “flying crane over back-flipping dragon” or some such Kama Sutra crap. Give her a good hard quickie against a wall, any day.
John Luke pounded away, seemingly encouraged by her groans and her ever-tightening grip. She could feel every nerve ending inside her about to ignite. Oh damn, take me there.
“Don’t… stop,” was all she could manage to articulate and even that was more of a growl than actual words. But it sure seemed to have the same effect as waving a red cape at a bull.
He hammered so hard that the wall creaked and dust floated down from the ceiling. His feet skidded, and he widened his stance, taking hold of her butt and pulling her into him with each stroke. Deeper and deeper. Until there it was.
The edge. That place where nothing mattered, where everyone could go screw themselves and all the problems could be solved by someone else because there wasn’t anywhere she’d rather do that be here in this moment with John Luke.
“Take me there,” she moaned.
He did. Fireworks burst behind her eyelids as her body pulsed and her fingers dug for purchase. With a shove that could have rattled her grandmother’s windows half a country away, he grunted his climax and then slowed his tempo.
Surprisingly, a second orgasm hit. “Ohh…ohh…”
John Luke stole the rest of the sound with his mouth against hers. When she finally went limp, he slowly lowered her so she could unlink her feet and put one down, then the other.
His smile was a satisfied and cocky, an attitude she had to respect considering what he’d just delivered. He gave her a noisy kiss and then released her. “I could eat a buffalo right about now.”
“Amen to that. But not until I’m clean.”
“Shower time?”
“Most definitely.”
John Luke pulled her to him for one more toe-curling kiss. “Want some company?” he asked when their lips parted.
“Most definitely.”
“Then let’s do it.”
Iliana grinned and took his hand. Fortunately, they didn’t meet anyone on the way to the small cabin she now called home. A one-bedroom, one-bathroom affair, it came with a private laundry room, kitchen, and decent-size sitting room, all furnished comfortably.
One of her favorite things about the house was the huge walk in shower. Even with a shower buddy as big as John Luke there was plenty of room. What there was not enough of was hot water. Thanks to him being fast to recover and slow to come a second time, shower sex took all the hot water, leaving them to get clean in the cold.
Iliana didn’t care. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this satisfied. John Luke seemed to know what she wanted and delivered. Boy, did he deliver.
She wrung out her hair, grabbed a couple of towels from the rack outside the shower, and handed him one.
“I had a call from your father today,” she commented as she dried off.
“About what?”
“Don’t know. I was involved in the—the Steve thing.” She paused in the act of drying her legs, straightened, and looked at him. “I’m going to tell you straight out that part of me is freaked out at the idea that people can change into animals.
“And the other part?”
“Curious.”
He reached out for her hand. “Which is the stronger?”
“Curiosity.” She answered immediately but then amended, “At least for now.” After a quick smile, she changed the subject. “You still in the mood for a steak?”
“I’m always in the mood for a steak.”
“How are your grill starting skills?”
“Champion level, ma’am.” He finished drying off and stepped out of the shower to pick up his discarded clothes.
“Damn, it’s a shame to cover that.” She watched as he pulled on boxer briefs.
John Luke grinned at her. “Careful. Flattery like that will land you in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” she teased in return.
“The kind that has you face down on the floor with that glorious ass in the air.”
As satisfied as she was, she felt her sex clench at his words. Good God, the man was like a freaking drug. One taste and bam, instant addiction.
“Well, since I need food, I’ll be careful. But fair warning, after I eat it’s a whole other story.”
“Promises, promises.”
Iliana chuckled and after hanging up her towel to dry, went into the bedroom for clean clothes. She selected a pair of soft yoga pants and a tank top
For the next few minutes, she busied herself with getting things together for dinner and getting John Luke started on lighting the grill. By the time he had the coals going, she had potatoes in the oven, steaks on a platter ready to go onto the fire, and a salad chopped and in the refrigerator.
She grabbed two beers and went out back to the small covered patio where John Luke was standing by the grill with his hands in his pockets, staring at the coals.
“Penny for your thoughts.” She handed him a beer when he turned his head to look at her.
He accepted the beer. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“Your tone implies it’s serious.”
“It is. The coals will take about fifteen or twenty minutes, so can we sit?”
“Sure.” She gestured to the padded bench along the wall.
They sat, and she waited until he’d had a drink of beer before asking. “Okay, so what did you want to talk about?”
John Luke set his beer aside. “First, I want you to know that until this year I didn’t know I’m a Shifter.”
“A Shifter?”
“Yeah, skinwalker is what my family calls us, and I guess that’s as good a term as any but the point it, until this year I didn’t know, and before you ask, the reason is because my mother had all us kids taking this mixture she made since we were old enough to walk. Ostensibly to treat our allergy to hay and other such things, but in reality, it hampered our ability to shift.”
The scientist in Iliana perked up. “Really? How? What was in it and how could it interfere? How exactly is it that you…shift? Do you just think about an animal and change into it? Can you only change into certain animals or—“
“Whoa! One question at a time.” John Luke smiled to take the sting out of his interruption. “And in answer, I don’t have a damn clue how it interfered and so far, shifting seems to be a matter of visualizing the animal in your mind.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Like a bitch.”
Iliana drew her legs up beneath her and angled toward him. “So, you said you didn’t know until this year. How did you find out?”
“My brother.” John Luke told her about Logan James and Sabine and all that had happened, including his mother’s betrayal and about Logan telling him about being a Shifter.
“And then my father introduced me to some of the leaders of the Seven.”
“The Seven? What’s that?”
“People like me—and Sabine. Shifters and Angels, Vampires, Were-People, Daemons, Wizards, and Fae.”
Iliana felt a tingle in her mind, something that caused a bit of unease. She tried to ignore it but had a hard time doing that. Was John Luke delusional? As unbelievable as it was, she knew he and Steve could become animals, but these Seven—vampires and daemons and Fae?
“Please don’t be mad, but do you realize how completely cr
azy you sound right now?”
“I do and believe me, telling you all this wasn’t how I planned on spending our first date. But my father asked me to, along with Augustus, the Prince of Vampires.”
“Prince of—“ Iliana had to get up, move around and pretend she was just checking the coals in the grill. “John Luke, this is starting to sound—“
“I know, but please hear me out.” He rose and came to her to turn her to face him. “I met a man, a Daemon. He told me something to say to you.”
“What?”
“Ily Scythiana, Michael Whitehorse, King of the Fae, has been killed.”
All sound in the world died. There was nothing but the echo of John Luke’s words. Her heart started to race, pounding harder and harder with each passing second. She felt sweat spill from her pores and bile boil in her gut. Rage and grief claimed her with such ferocity that it stole her strength.
She collapsed onto the decking, incapable of speech or sound, consumed with the pain of grief and not understanding why. Sharp agony sent her hands flying up to press on either side of her head, gasping at the anguish.
John Luke fell to his knees beside her, drawing her into his arms to support her. “We need you to remember, Ily Scythiana. Remember who you are. Your people, your Prince, need you.”
The pain intensified to the point that she could do nothing but scream. It hammered inside her mind, tearing her apart. Nothing existed but the pain and flashes of visions.
On and on it battered her until she had no voice to scream, no breath to give to pant or cry. Her strength gave out, and she succumbed to the anguish.
Fear spiked fast and hard when Iliana went limp. John Luke picked her up and managed to get to his feet with her in his arms. He carried her inside, placed her on the bed, and pulled out his phone. He’d programmed a number into it, one he’d been told to use in case of an emergency.
This seemed to qualify. He called up the contact and hit Dial. After two rings, the call was answered.
“How may I assist?” Severin asked.
John Luke gave him the five-second explanation. “I told her what you said to say, she fell, grabbed her head, screamed like she was dying for five minutes and then lost consciousness.”
“Check her vitals.”
John Luke had taken the requisite first aid classes required by the Bureau, so he knew how to take someone’s pulse. He timed it using his phone. “Her pulse is strong but only thirty-five beats a minute.”
“Normal for a Scythe,” Severin replied. “How is her color?”
“Looks normal.”
“Hold, please. I’d like to consult with one of our healers.”
“Okay.” John Luke paced the room, watching Iliana.
It seemed like an hour before Severin’s voice came back on the line. “If she has not regained consciousness in half an hour, call again.”
“Okay,” John Luke agreed. “Thank you.”
“Call again when she is conscious.”
“Yes, I will. Thanks.”
He ended the call and sat down on the bed beside Iliana. What had happened? Whether she knew who and what she was or not, his words should not have affected her that way.
“Iliana?” He leaned over and stroked her hair back from her face. “Iliana, honey, can you hear me?”
There was no response. On a hunch, he tried again. “Ily Scythiana, please wake up. Your Prince and your people have need of you.”
Again, nothing. John Luke didn’t know what to do but wait and watch the time.
Ily felt the grief like a blanket, wrapping her tightly, so tightly she could not breathe. She’d never imagined pain such as this, no matter what she’d been taught by her mother and other warriors who’d trained her.
She was Protector of the King, bound to him by blood. She breathed for him, her heart beat for him. He was her reason for being. To have him ripped from her was like having the heart ripped from her chest. It was worse even than that.
How cursed she’d been, to have been robbed of memory upon her entry into this realm. To have the chance taken from her to protect him and then have memory restored to discover he was no longer alive was the cruelest blow of all.
There was no longer a need to live. She’d failed her King and lost her reason for being. She didn’t want to live; she just wanted to sink into the blackness and disappear.
And so, she let go. Deeper and deeper the darkness became, fainter and fainter her sense of self. She was almost there, at that endless well of nothing when she heard the voice.
“Ily Scythiana, please waken. Your Prince and your people have need of you.”
She felt a small stirring, a faint desire to answer the call, but there was not enough strength in the desire to have her push back from the well. Not until the voice sounded again.
“Iliana, it’s me, John Luke. If you can’t come back for them, then come back for me. I know we just met, and I know we got off to a rocky start, but I also know that you felt something when we made love. We weren’t just having a good fuck; there was something more. I know it’s there and I don’t want to lose you. Please, come back. Whatever needs to be fixed, we’ll find a way. I promise. I’ll do whatever it takes. Iliana? Can you hear me?”
Miraculously, that plea stirred something inside her. Until now, her life had belonged to duty, to love of her King. Since the day she’d awakened in that hospital bed, she’d been alone. John Luke had touched something more than her body. He’d roused something inside her that had been asleep for a very long time.
And that something possessed the strength to pull back from the well of nothingness. She opened her eyes and saw him watching her with worry clear on his face.
“I heard you.”
“Thank God.” He yanked her up and wrapped his arms around her. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she murmured. Not only had her memories returned, but her sense of duty had as well. Honor demanded that she do everything in her power to locate and protect her King. She assumed that was now Eldric. Since she had no way of knowing where he was, the logical place to start the search was at home.
She was lost in contemplating her course of action when John Luke loosened his hold enough to look at her. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No. I have to—“she pulled away from him. “I have to try to phase.”
“Phase?”
“Move from this dimension to my own.”
“You mean leave?”
The look on his face was like a slap, reminding her that he was the one who had pulled her from the darkness. To state so matter-of-factly that it was time for her to return home had to seem quite callous and uncaring.
“Just long enough to insure that King Eldric is safe.”
“Can’t you just ask someone?”
Ily put her hands over her eyes, fingers digging at her scalp. Her head was pounding and she had no time for pain. She had to figure out her next move.
John Luke pulled her hands away from her face. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. No.“ She blew out a breath. “No, but I hope I will be. In time.”
“What do you mean? Are you hurt? Should I call—“
“No. That’s not what I meant.” She wasn’t sure how to explain. She was still trying to assimilate all of it. It was like being hit by a tidal wave. Memories of a lifetime pounding down in one swift and overwhelming blow. Now her mind sought to make sense of it all, sort though and absorb it. And then on top of that, to try and find a way to fulfill her duty.
“I—wow.” She pushed back from him and propped her back against the headboard of the bed. “It’s—gods, I don’t know how to explain. Until today I thought I was Iliana James, an orphan raised by my grandmother Oma James. Now…now I know that before I was Iliana, I was someone else. Ily Scythiana, Protector of the King.”
She looked at John Luke, feeling a little embarrassed to even speak the words, they seemed so unreal to that part of her that
was still trying to assimilate the memories. “That sounds like…crazy, doesn’t it?”
“A year ago, I would have said yes. But today? Not so much.”
His words brought a relief that robbed her of strength, it was so great. She reached for his hand. “I remember who I was, John Luke.”
“A Scythe Warrior, Protector of the King and heiress to the rule of the Scythian Clan?”
“That sounds like a bad fantasy, doesn’t it?
He smiled and squeezed her hand. “Yeah, to be honest, it does.”
“But it’s not and I have a duty to fulfill. What am I supposed to do? Just move on with life like nothing has changed?”
“No, of course not. Your people—our people are facing a big problem and need your help.”
“My help? What can I do?”
“Hopefully, save lives. But that’s a discussion you need to have with someone else, and I need to call him to tell him you’re okay. Is that all right with you?”
“Sure, I guess.” She released his hand but then grabbed it again as he started to pick up his phone from the nightstand. “Wait. When I said what now, it was also…it was a question about us. Where do we go from here?”
“Wherever the next step takes us. If you heard me, then you know what I said. I’m not going anywhere, Iliana. I promised, and I meant it. There’s something happening here, and I want to see where it leads us. If you do.”
“I do. Very much. And could you call me Ily?”
“I sure can. Now, can I call Severin and let him know you’re okay?”
“Severin?” She grabbed his hand. “You mean Lord Severin of Daemons? My gods, he’s here?”
“Yeah, I mean I don’t know about him being a Lord, but his name is Severin. You act like he’s a pretty big deal.”
“Because he is. He and my King were blood brothers. And…” She didn’t know how else to say it but straight out. “And I was his concubine.”
“His—“ John Luke’s eyes widened. “You were his mistress?”
“Of sorts.” She felt the atmosphere change.
“And now?” he asked. “Will you return to being his mistress?”
That was a very good question, and one she had no answer for. Until John Luke had said Severin was here, she’d thought never to see him again. Now that she knew he was only a phone call away, it changed things, and she didn’t know what came next.
