by Ella Frank
The older man brought his gaze to Kai’s and backed away. “You’d do well to take Ry’Ker’s advice, Mala’Kai. I’ve just about run out of patience with you, and trust me, I had very little to begin with.”
Naeve reached for Audra’s hand. The three of them waited in the massive room dressed in clothes that should have been normal but somehow managed to make them seem like the strangers.
Kai lowered his arm and slid his sword back into the case hanging from his waist. “Let’s get this over with.”
The gruff statement met stony silence. Then the man climbing the steps to a raised platform started to laugh.
“Oh, so now that you’ve flexed your muscle, you’re ready to make a deal. Is that right?”
“No,” Kai answered. “The deal was made before I left Claremont.”
“Was it? I don’t remember Ry’Ker mentioning your terms.”
“That’s because I never told him what I wanted.”
There was a pregnant pause before a low question was asked—one that Naeve barely heard.
“And now you know what you want?”
“Yes.”
She focused on the Commander as he turned to face them all. His dark eyes shifted over to where she and her sisters stood behind Bastian, and Naeve took a moment to glance at his unmoving body. What had they done to Bastian?
“And what, pray tell, do you want, Mala’Kai?” he asked, pulling her from her thoughts.
Naeve had known all along that Kai wouldn’t have done what he had out of the goodness of his heart. He’d pulled a knife on her and threatened her for God’s sake. But this new information from Audra, the knowledge that he’d hurt her sisters when he’d said he wouldn’t, unnerved her all over again.
“Her,” he said, pointing a finger right at her.
Naeve felt her mouth fall open and her eyes widen as she stared in utter disbelief at Kai. Fiona gripped her hand tighter, and Audra started to tremble at her side.
He isn’t serious? Is he?
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kai.” His brother made that comment, and it was the first thing Naeve agreed with him on.
“I assure you, brother, I am not. That is what I want, and since I held up my end of the bargain, I expect to get it.”
“This is not a meat market. You don’t get to just walk in, pick out the juiciest-looking piece, and walk back out.”
Naeve knew she was supposed to speak up and say that she wasn’t going anywhere. But she didn’t even know where she was, so she wasn’t exactly sure what she should be protesting. Then it occurred to her that he’d said, “Her,” as in one.
What about my sisters?
* * *
Ry’Ker stood by his brother, trying to keep from cramming his fist in his face. He was almost shaking with his rage as he listened to him repeat that preposterous demand.
“Her.”
One of the women? Good luck convincing Li’Am—
“Done.”
What?
“And Bastian,” Mala’Kai added.
“No.”
The answer was final and sure, and it had Ry’Ker’s head snapping back.
“What?” he boomed before he’d realized he was even going to say it.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one in shock, because the petite blonde who’d just been bargained like a piece of livestock cried out a, “What?” of her own.
Kai held Li’Am’s stare for several seconds but said nothing more. Instead, he strode over to where the three girls were standing.
“You’re coming with me.”
Ry’Ker saw the woman’s eyes widen, true horror filling them as she adamantly shook her head and gripped her sisters as if they could save her.
“No! I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Ry’Ker had no clue what Li’Am was thinking, and as he turned back to his Commander, he saw him watching the exchange between his brother and the woman. He witnessed Kai bend down until he was hovering over the blonde, and she shut her mouth real quick.
That, however, didn’t stop her sister Fiona, the stubborn one, from stating, “You can’t take her.”
“Who’s going to stop me?” Kai asked. “You? I believe I showed you out in the forest how ineffective your attempts are.”
Finally, the woman under discussion seemed to find her tongue and asked in a voice that sounded as though she felt betrayed, “Why are you doing this?”
That was when Kai reached out and gripped her arm, tugging her free of her sisters. Ry’Ker was surprised that she went, and he was even more surprised by the way her face softened slightly when his brother ran a finger down her cheek.
“I told you once before, little rabbit. I’m a hunter, and I don’t give up my prey—not ever.”
“But I don’t want to go with you,” she protested. But the words were softened by the whisper-like way she delivered them, almost as if she were in a trance as she swayed towards him.
If Ry’Ker hadn’t known better, he would have thought that Kai was working some kind of mind game, something more akin to what Si’Bastian would do. But no, the sensualeer was still out cold on the floor.
“You can make this easy or hard. Either way, you’re coming with me.”
Ry’Ker spun back to Li’Am and got his mouth to finally obey its command and speak. “Commander?”
Li’Am turned his attention to him but offered nothing. He was going to let Kai walk right out of here with her. One of the four women—the women he’d been told were needed together and safe.
What the hell is going on?
“Guards!” Li’Am bellowed, and several men marched into the room and stopped behind them. “Escort these two women back to their room and show Mala’Kai and his…guest the exit please. He got what he came for.”
As Kai moved the blonde towards the door, one of Ry’Ker’s men took Fiona’s arm and she let out a shout, “Don’t touch me!” After wrenching it free, she pulled her silent sister close as if she too were being taken away from her.
“Naeve! You can’t go with him. What are you doing?” she cried out as her arm was taken again.
The blonde didn’t even turn.
“Naeve!”
Ry’Ker was stunned as Fiona continued to call out her sister’s name until the large hall emptied and there was no one remaining except those who’d been there to begin with.
Li’Am, Si’Bastian, and himself.
Naeve followed Kai as he walked her out of the large room and down the long corridor ahead. She could hear Fiona shouting her name behind them, but ever since he’d touched her, it was like she was in a sort of daze and had no will to stop herself from going where he was taking her.
As they made their way past several closed doors, she noticed that each one of them had a torch lighting the entryway—but Kai kept walking. His fingers were circling her arm where she’d haphazardly wrapped the blanket he’d given her earlier.
When they came to a door at the end of the narrow walkway she finally managed to open her mouth and speak.
“Kai?”
He stopped and faced her, and she was shocked by the fierce determination she saw stamped across his serious features.
“What?”
Naeve wasn’t sure what she wanted to ask, but what ended up coming out was, “Why?” She wasn’t sure if she meant, Why are you doing this, or why me? Or maybe she meant both.
His dark brows furrowed and he looked baffled as he again ran a finger along her temple. As soon as his fingertip touched her, a heated flush spread over her skin as though it were a fire licking through her veins.
“Do you feel that?” His voice was gruff.
Her eyes moved to his, and her thighs clenched in response to his words. Yes, she felt it. That same reaction from earlier in the room upstairs, which only seemed to intensify when they touched.
What the hell is happening to me?
“I can see that you do. It’s in your eyes.”
She felt inexplicably drawn to him, just
as she had seconds earlier when he’d dragged her from the room. He drew his fingers down her cheek to her chin, where he traced the rough pads along her jaw, and took a step forward.
Naeve backed up, distrusting her emotions, and felt the wall press into her shoulder blades when she lost her grip on the blanket. It slid down her shoulders and landed at her feet, and when the cool air hit her fevered flesh, she thought it was probably a good thing, especially since she felt as though she were about to burst into flames.
“Maybe it’s been too long,” he mused. “I keep telling myself that… But even so, that doesn’t explain why you are responding to me.”
His deep voice was hypnotic as he continued to trail the back of his fingers down her neck, and Naeve felt her body ache in response to the caress. She could only imagine how she must have looked, pinned against the wall, blanket pooled at her feet and eyes glazed over.
She wasn’t naïve. She knew how she looked—aroused.
It had been months since she’d been intimate with someone, and even then, nothing had ever made her feel like this.
Kai took a step closer, and Naeve heard a metallic jingle—his weapons—and sucked in her breath. She wanted to tell him to stop, she was sure, but when his hand flattened against the bare skin above her breasts, her brain short-circuited.
“Does this hurt?”
She blinked several times and wondered why he would ask. How he would know about the dull ache in her chest?
“A little…why?”
“Hmm,” he frowned, and drew his fingers down to flirt with the top of her cleavage. “I’ve done many things I’m not proud of, but I told you I wouldn’t hurt you, and I won’t force you. So unless you’re willing…”
She knew what he was asking, and as she gazed up at the menacing face above her, she felt her entire being yearn for his.
This is crazy, isn’t it? How can I even think it with everything that just happened?
But she was. Hell, she wasn’t stupid. Her body was willing. It was throbbing like she was on the verge of orgasm and he’d done nothing but touch his fingers to her face. It was her mind that was rebelling.
“So, what’s it to be, little rabbit? Do we stay or do we go?”
She blinked once and felt her breasts push against his palm on an inhale as she tried to pull herself from the fog that was engulfing her.
“What happens if we stay?”
His grey eyes darkened as they tracked down to where his fingers lingered between her breasts, and Naeve heard a soft moan slip from her lips.
“I’m going to put my hands on you, and you’re going to let me.”
She could feel the damp heat of desire as it pooled between her thighs. It was glaring proof that she wanted his hands, wanted him…but—
“Will you let me go after that?”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew they were the wrong ones to say. The hunger she’d seen in his eyes quickly turned to anger, and he grabbed her arm. She gasped at the bite of pain his fingers inflicted as they dug into her flesh.
He drew her forward from the wall, leaned down so their noses were touching, and told her through his teeth, “I see that you lied to me earlier.”
Wincing, Naeve attempted to pull her arm free, but it was pointless. He was much too strong.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You told me that you weren’t a whore, yet here you are, ready to bargain with your body.”
Without even thinking it, the hand by her side swung up and her palm connected with his cheek in a slap so hard that the cracking sound echoed off the walls.
Quick as a flash, he took her by both arms and lifted her, restraining her against the wall. With a grunt, he wedged his body between her legs, which were dangling above the ground, and Naeve automatically reached for his shoulders to brace herself. She kept her eyes locked with his as one of his hands moved to her knee, and he hitched her thigh up along his side. Then she moaned, louder this time, as the rough material of his pants rubbed the inside of her legs, and his eyes zeroed in on her lips.
“Gods, I like that sound,” he groaned.
Naeve clutched the coarse material of the cape he had over his shoulders. Why am I letting him touch me this way? And enjoying it? He’d just called her a whore, but as he gripped her other leg and wrapped it around his waist, she closed her eyes and held on tight.
He was like everything else in this strange, new world—a beautiful nightmare. Dark, dangerous, and lethal.
One she knew she should wake from but felt herself sliding deeper inside of.
She was positive she should have been resisting, but as she searched his fiercely attractive features and his hands trailed up her outer thighs, Naeve knew she wanted this. A taste of danger.
* * *
Kai could feel Naeve’s fingers dig into his shoulders as she strained against him. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to get closer or escape. Her eyes looked wild as she shifted up his body, and when that delicious moan left her lips once more, he had to remind himself where he was.
There was a time when he’d given no thought to taking a maid in the halls of L’Mere, but this place was no longer his home. He no longer felt welcome, or comfortable, with his pants down and his cock out.
With that in mind, he placed a hand at the base of her smooth, creamy throat. He felt her swallow and watched her pink tongue flick over her bottom lip.
“You will not slap me again, do you hear me?”
Her eyes blazed at him as the desire there warred with anger. “Yes. But only if you stop calling me a whore.”
Kai jutted his hips forward, causing a soft gasp to escape her. “Are you denying your current need to slake your lust?”
She closed her eyes, and Kai thought it was telling that she was trying to block him out, but he was having none of that. He slid his palm down her chest and cupped one of her breasts. Immediately, she arched her hips against him.
“Are you?” he growled, and her eyes opened, trying to focus on him.
“No. I’m not denying I want you. But I do deny that I’m a…a…”
Kai lowered his head and whispered in her ear, “Harlot?”
He figured that would get him another slap to the face or teeth marks in his cheek from her biting him in retaliation, and maybe he deserved them. He didn’t understand his body’s response to her, and it was unnerving. It was as if she were somehow inside his skin and he could feel her stroking every part of him until he wanted to explode.
He had no control, and for a man who lacked it at the best of times, the destruction of the thin strand he held on to meant…havoc.
“If you ask me,” he murmured, “bargaining your body for something you want is exactly the same as taking cock for coin.”
She let out an indignant sound, and her breath ghosted over his lips. “That’s not what I was doing.”
“Yes, it was,” he argued, lowering his head so their mouths touched. “But I don’t want your coins, and I don’t plan to let you go, so if that’s the only reason you’re offering—cease. Otherwise, you will get a lot more than you bargained for.”
As the final word left his mouth, he crushed his lips against hers.
The kiss was brutal as he unleashed years of pent-up frustration on the woman opening her mouth under his. She could deny her offer all she wanted, but she was as desperate for his mouth as he was for hers. He could feel her heart thumping quickly behind her breast as he squeezed his hand around her soft flesh.
She feels good. So damn good.
He wanted to take her down to one of L’Mere’s rooms, throw her on the bed, and rip her ridiculous sundress off her. The material was so flimsy that he knew it wouldn’t be a problem, and even if it were, he’d just use his knife to get closer to that soft, supple skin.
His tongue rubbed against hers, and if he’d thought she would be timid or shy, he’d been greatly mistaken. She tangled with him, and he heard his own groan as he pushed her harder a
gainst the wall.
Gods, if he didn’t stop, he was going to take her like an animal right there in the hall.
He ripped his mouth away from hers and felt his cock pounding inside his pants. “I haven’t lain with a woman in years. That makes a man two things: ravenous and reckless. But I’m not willing to die for the sweet slide of your body just yet.” He released her legs, and as they slid down his sides and her feet touched the floor, he stepped away. “Li’Am gave us mounts. We ride to Claremont tonight. You best get control of your body or you will find the journey either incredibly uncomfortable or perhaps…pleasurable.”
He knew the minute his meaning sank in because her eyes widened in shock. Then she crouched down to grab the blanket from the floor.
“You’re disgusting,” she spat out.
Kai chuckled low in his throat but didn’t deny the claim. What he wanted to do to her was disgusting, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“That may be so. But when I touch you, your whole body responds to me. Deny it all you want, but for some reason or another, you want me.”
She glared at him as she stood and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders as if it were a shield.
“You’re as drawn to me as I am to you, and I for one want to know why.” He backed away until he was at the door they’d first stopped in front of. “Now, let us go. We have at least one night’s ride ahead of us.”
* * *
Ry’Ker stood before his Commander and tried to figure out whether or not he’d lost his mind. What was he thinking sending that woman away with Kai, and what of Bastian?
He let his eyes slide to the man still on the ground and felt a pang of… What? Sympathy? He didn’t know the sensualeer, but to see him as he was now made Ry’Ker uncomfortable for obeying his leader and doing nothing—which was definitely a first.
“Ry’Ker?”
His name, delivered in that authoritative tone, snapped him out of his thoughts and had him focusing back on Li’Am.
“Yes, Commander?”
