by Emma Dawn
At the top, he helped me stand as a roar echoed over the sound of the wind.
“Morloosh,” Mars said softly. “That was my final death blow. Come on. We need to hide.”
I didn’t argue or ask what the hell a morloosh was. I was completely spent and the cold had finally seeped through to my bones, chilling me so much that I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to get warm again.
Mars grabbed me under one arm and all but dragged me toward the shining thing I’d seen what felt like days before even though it had only been an hour, maybe two.
The edge of a chimney of a small house mostly buried by snow.
“I can’t use my magic,” Mars said. “The Morloosh will sense it.”
He hurried to the small house, shack, I wasn’t sure exactly, and began to dig the snow out by hand. I followed more slowly and then stood by him, helping him. The snow was deep and we were digging with our bare hands, fingers biting through the chunks of ice.
“You don’t give up easily,” he said.
“No. I don’t. Much to my detriment sometimes. Sometimes I should give up.” The words came out between deep gulping breaths.
The minutes ticked away and the roar of the Morloosh came again, but it seemed further away as if it were leaving our area. That had to be good.
Finally, Mars grabbed the door of the small house and yanked it open. He stepped inside first, which I thought was rude until I heard his voice. “Let me be sure it’s safe.”
I stood there my arms limp at my sides, my body done shivering. I was beyond that point. Whatever energy I’d exerted digging the house out, creating the ledges, and climbing across the big damn mountain had exhausted me to the point I had nothing left, not even enough to shiver.
A hand dropped onto my forearm and Mars tugged me inside. He shut the door and locked it behind us. It was only then I realized that he’d lit a few candles.
“Strip your clothes off while I get a fire going,” he said.
I knew he was right, this was no time to be a prude. Not that I was anyway. My fingers were numb, though, and I couldn’t seem to get the corset top off, or the leather pants. Like they’d frozen to me.
I closed my eyes, imaging them a puddle of material at me feet as I smoothed my hands over my body. The leather and the corset peeled away as if it were indeed liquid, leaving me naked and still unable to shiver.
Mars turned from lighting the fire and hurried to me. “Here.” He wrapped a thick blanket around me but all it seemed to do was hold the cold to me. He pushed me toward the fire and from the corner of my eye I saw him strip. Okay, I stared at him stripping down to absolutely nothing.
His body was a masterpiece made of hard lines and angles, scars littering his upper arms and then I realized they weren’t scars. Or at least they weren’t random scars. They were patterns that looked familiar to me which was crazy. But I found myself reaching out from under the blanket to touch them. My lips wouldn’t form words, though I had so many questions.
Mars sat beside me, then pulled me into his lap. Lap, naked. Another time I would have been all over this.
He yanked the blanket from me and I gasped, until he wrapped it around us both and opened the edges of it so the fire’s heat curled in toward us. I laid my head on his shoulder, the warmth of his skin making mine tingle as it slowly came back to life.
“I . . .I’ve never had anyone fight for me like that.” He whispered the words as if he were afraid they would somehow make him weak. I closed my eyes and let him talk. Not like I could have answered anyway, at least, not with any coherency. “I’ve never heard of anyone journeying toward the Chalice saving one of their guardians, Rose. And I can’t tell you . . .how much that means to me.”
I looked up at him then and managed a smile. But still no words. I laid my head back on his shoulder and the heat began to seep into me, making me further sluggish. I tucked my hands up under my chin and sleep stole over me, putting me out of my misery.
Chapter Six
This? I Have Time for This
The first thing I thought when I woke was that there was a seriously delicious male body pressed against my backside and he was awake—or at least a part of him was awake. I laid there, staring at a still roaring fire, a big male hand on my hip and my head on his arm and . . .then I remembered where I was.
And that there were other men—my other guardians—out there in the snow waiting on us.
I jerked upright. “Mars. Get up, we have to go get them!” I was on my feet and running for my clothes before he could grab me.
“Wait, get who?” He spun me around to face him.
“Ivan, Jessop, Liam, Torq! They are out there in this storm. We can’t leave them there!” Oh, God, what if they were already dead? Frozen in place. My heart clenched in a way I didn’t understand and didn’t care to think about too much. No sense, it made no sense to feel so strongly for all of them. Especially if Torq was right and two of them were out for my blood.
Mars smiled down at me and shook his head. “They aren’t out there. This is the first challenge you face, and you face it alone with me.”
“So . . .what about the others?”
“They’ll be waiting for us where we left them. From what I’ve seen, we could be here for days and they would feel like we’d only been gone a minute or two. That’s how the challenges work. They take us, and you with us, back to . . .”
“When you died for real?” Horror flickered through me. “What the hell? That is seriously messed up!”
“Yes, but it’s the way things are done,” he said. “It’s like stepping back in time, or across dimensions, if you like.”
I shivered and wrapped my arms around my chest and stomped back to be closer to the fire. I sat and pulled the blanket up around my shoulders. “Still, it’s messed up. So you have to face your worst moment in life, and the person you’re guarding is supposed to what? Just let you die?”
He sighed and sat next to me. I offered him part of the blanket and we sat like two kids staring into the fire while a storm raged outside. “This is actually the first challenge I’ve faced with a charge. I don’t know how many challenges you must face. It’s different for every person. Our group started out with thirteen guardians. We’ve now lost seven.”
“These rules sound like they keep changing,” I grumbled.
He draped an arm across my shoulders and tugged me closer to him. “This world is fluid as you’ve seen. It has to be or you wouldn’t be able to manipulate it like you do. Which, by the way, is something I’ve never seen anyone do. Not even Vincent has that knack and he’s been here longer than anyone.”
“I don’t like it.” I leaned my head into him. Like we’d been friends for years. “I feel really comfortable with you.”
He laughed. “It’s the warlock blood in your veins, I think, it speaks to mine.”
“Yeah. But I’ll be honest, I’d fuck Ivan if given the chance.” The words escaped me before I could catch them and I cringed. What was I thinking, talking about Ivan while I was sitting here naked with Mars? That was damn stupid.
Mars laughed. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“What, you want to fuck him too?” It was my turn to laugh. I looked up at him and he rolled his eyes, a smile on his lips.
“No, it’s that I can see how you look at all of us. Like we’re a damn buffet you plan on sampling every bit of.”
I blushed—something that I hadn’t done in years. “Well, that’s embarrassing.”
“Don’t be. Again. It’s partially to do with your warlock blood. But you’re special. We already knew that.” He tightened his arm around me and I let him hold me. Okay, I wanted him to hold me but I had no doubt if I’d pulled away he would have let me go.
“Tell me what you mean. Please. I want to understand things, and just what is going on here.” I was also trying not to stare at the muscular thigh under my one hand.
“Being a female warlock and coming from a family line of great power, there i
s a strong chance you will take not one mate, but several. Strong women need strong men and quite frankly . . .the more the better.”
I gaped up at him. “Pardon…what?”
He snorted. “Yeah, thought that might get your attention. After you drink from the Chalice and are alive again, do not be surprised if you find your way to three or four men who you are equally drawn to for different reasons. With what I’m seeing here, there is a chance you won’t even stay within the warlock realm of men.” His words mimicked Vincent’s which meant . . .that they were probably true. Wow.
I clenched my hand on his leg. “Can I be brutally honest?”
“Sure. Just maybe ease up on my leg first.”
I snatched my hand back. “Sorry. I . . .I’ve never been happy with a single guy. And you’re saying this is why? And what man would want to share me?”
His violet eyes glittered. “I’d take whatever you would offer me, Rose. You have strength and courage, and laughter, and light in you. And it does no harm that you are a beautiful, curvy woman who is making things rather difficult on me to keep my hands to myself right now. Considering the situation.”
“You’ve only known me for like a day.” I blurted the words. “You can’t know those things about me.”
“No? Am I wrong?”
I frowned. “No. I’m all those things. And a bag of potato chips.”
He threw back his head and laughed and I watched the muscles in his chest and neck, my mouth all but salivating to latch onto his skin right there, to nip and kiss my way . . .nope. That was a whole lot of nope. Vincent said it wasn’t a good idea. That it would hurt my chances of getting home.
“Vincent said what?” Mars leaned toward me. I startled, wondering if I’d spoken that last bit about Vincent out loud. I checked myself, and breathed a sigh of relief when I realized it was just my thoughts and not my mouth getting ahead of me.
“He said that I shouldn’t even consider sleeping with any of you, and really you are making that hard on me right now.” I didn’t mean for the words to come out breathy and soft. But damn it, I was struggling to breathe. His mouth turned into a grim line.
“Why would he say that?” He tipped his head a little and the light caught in his violet eyes.
“I don’t know, I thought it was just the rules. Ivan said so too.” Again, with the breathy words. “And I don’t sleep with people I’ve only just met. Even I have my . . my. . .” Damn it, I couldn’t think straight with his face so close to mine.
“Morals? Standards?”
“Yeah those. I think those.” Our lips were mere inches away. Not even inches but a breath, a whisper from touching.
“This isn’t the human world, Rose. The rules you’ve grown up with don’t apply here. When you find someone who fits with you, you take hold of that. Because you do not know when you might find yourself facing death. Life is short and we of the supernatural world know that better than any other. We fight hard, we play hard, and we love hard because when death comes, it comes when we least expect it.”
His mouth touched mine as he spoke, and his words lit an answering truth in me. A truth I’d always known. That life was not meant to be handled with kid gloves, but to be lived as if each moment could be your last. To run into my life screaming defiance to all those who would try to hold me down, to hold me back.
I reached up and let my hands slide over his face, down his neck and against his chest. “Mars, I can’t promise you’ll be my only one.”
“Good. I don’t want to try and keep up to you on my own.” He growled the words and that sound seemed to light up every nerve ending from my lips right down to my lower lips. I was breathing hard, struggling to keep up with what was happening.
I knew it felt right; Mars was meant to be in my life. I wouldn’t deny him and I wouldn’t deny myself because he was right. Who knew where the next step in the journey might take us?
His lips brushed against mine, side to side, while his tongue darted out, slipping between my lips, wetting them. I flicked my tongue out, and tugged his head closer to me. A current of something—like electricity but softer—trembled through us as our mouths connected. I sucked in a sharp breath that escaped me in a moan echoed back to me from Mars.
He pressed harder against my mouth and I pushed back, our mouths wrestling for dominance. The thought made me smile and I laughed as he tackled me and then we were on the floor, me on my back and Mars raised up on his forearms.
“Rose, are you sure?” he asked.
“You’re sweet for asking.” I cupped his face and kissed him again, wanting more of this man in front of me. “And yes, I’m sure.”
His mouth came down on mine, hard and demanding, and I opened to him. His skin was warm and smooth against mine, the hardness of his body a luscious contrast to my softer curves. I let my hands trail over his shoulders and down his back to his tight ass and then back up again. Mars kissed the sides of my mouth, the tip of my nose, which made me smile and then he began to kiss his way down my neck.
I knew what was coming, I’d been here before. As the saying goes, this was not my first rodeo.
“I like lots of stimulation,” I said as his mouth descended on one nipple. He chuckled and rolled the nub in his mouth, then held it between his teeth and flicked it with his tongue. I gasped and arched into him, trying to get him to do more. Touch me more.
“We’ll get there, Rose. Just trust me.” He whispered the words as he let go of my one nipple and moved to the other. He raised his one hand and rubbed his finger and thumb together until they sparked.
“I thought the Morloosh would sense your magic?”
“Not this amount, this is subtle, and not defensive or aggressive.” He grinned down at me, and I saw that cheeky boy he must have been once. The one to steal his mother’s fresh baking and drive the girls insane with desire around him.
“What are you thinking? Your eyes went far away from me there.” He kissed me gently, grounding me.
“That you would have been a handful when you were younger. But I bet the girls loved you.”
He shook his head. “No, I was very well behaved. And from a young age, I wore the cloak of the Warlock. Not many people have seen my face.”
“Why?”
“Because powerful people can be used so easily. I saw it time and time again. I didn’t want that for my life. Now … if you don’t mind, I’d like to fuck you?”
A smile slid across my face. “Oh, okay. If you insist.”
He dropped his hand to my breast. The one that he’d been sparking with a bit of magic. I arched up into the sensation that cascaded through me. Like a nipple clamp only with tiny bits of electricity running through it. A fucking vibrating nipple clamp. My hips squirmed and wiggled of their own accord, my pussy wanting everything this man had to offer.
“Lots of stimulation, you’re sure about that?” He purred the words into my ear as he dipped a finger down through my already soaking wet folds. “Very sure?”
“Very.” It was the only word I could manage and even that was gasped out. Mars chuckled and I watched with a growing hunger, a growing heat between my legs as he rubbed his finger and thumb together again.
Little fissions of electrical current—low and just on this side of the pain threshold—curled through my one nipple drawing me closer to an orgasm with such little stimulation than ever before. I bit my lower lip.
“What about you?” I managed.
He laughed as he lowered his finger to my other nipple. He pressed and rolled the magic around the nub, massaging it in. A second series of vibrations through the unseen clamp sent my hands into the blanket below me, grasping at it as if I could anchor myself down.
“Trust me. I’m going to enjoy this very much.” He continued to stroke a finger through my folds, along my pussy and to my ass. When I moved to lift myself to him, he gave me a gentle swat on the ass cheek.
“Hold still.”
“Oh, my God.” I couldn’t hold the words b
ack but I tried to do as he wanted to let him take control of this encounter. How many times had a dreamed of a man who knew what he was doing, a man who could bring me to orgasm without me having to direct every move.
I heard the crackled of electricity and I managed to open my eyes, looking to his finger and thumb which he rubbed together once more.
“Ready? I’m going to hold your orgasm from you until you can’t stand it any longer.” He grinned at me, a wicked, toe curling grin that made me want to sit up and lick his cock. But I couldn’t move with the currents running through my nipples, the pressure holding me to the ground that was nothing but pleasure. I could feel my pussy dripping, sliding down the back side of my ass cheek.
“So, wet,” he murmured. “So, beautiful.” He slid the hand that had been sparking with his power between my legs and rubbed his fingers into my clit, as if setting the clamp in place. The charge was different than on my nipples, this one was slower to build, and I knew right then and there that I would never be fucked like this again.
He grabbed my thighs and pulled me closer to him. I was shaking with the currents going through me and it was all I could do to make eye contact with him.
“Too much?” He stroked a hand down my belly, sliding his fingers along my thighs where they rested on his.
I shook my head.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“Not too much. Fuck me. Please.” I whimpered the words, as my hips gave an involuntary spasm upward. Whatever he’d done to my clit was indeed a slow building pressure with the occasional burst of a vibration. As if he’d placed something there instead of his mouth, a tongue that worked me over, up and down, slow, but a hard pressure that pushed my clit into my pelvic bone so it was squeezed from both sides.
“God, Mars, please.”
“In due time.” He pressed my thighs open wider and any other time I might have felt rather exposed. But he was just watching me, watching my reactions.
