She dropped the knife. Kneeling down, she took his shoulder and worked to turn him over, his head lolling to the side.
His eyes were closed. She stroked his exotic face, composed of sharp cheekbones and sensual lips, brushed his hair back, and tucked it behind a delicate pointed ear. Leaning in close to his mouth and nose, she listened, desperate to hear breathing sounds. But there were none.
“Kian!” She shook his shoulder and his head bobbed. Placing two fingers below the corner of his jaw, she felt for a pulse. “Damn it!”
Praying to Danu, she rolled him to his back, pressed on his chest, and performed CPR. Pushing to the beat she closed her eyes and reached down into the earth for more power. Energy from deep under the palace sprang to her call, flowing in from the ground and coursing up the inside of her bones. The surprising flood of power eagerly poured out her palms and into Kian in a surge of light and energy and magic.
His body bucked, and the power under her skin pulsed in response. Air rushed in and out of his lungs, and his eyelids fluttered open. His violet eyes glowed with the magic of the spell and her breath caught. The magic called to her and the power racing through her body answered.
He lifted his face, every inch the Fae Lord, and she trembled in response. He flexed his long, elegant hand experimentally and his incredible purple eyes glowed with fierce joy. She fell into his gaze and the silvery power inside her soared and reached out to him, dragging her with it.
“Bryanna,” he said, in a voice rough and ragged with need. His eyes glittered with a hunger so intense she could taste it on her lips, feel it on her skin. She had a brief sane thought that she didn’t know him, shouldn’t do this, that having sex with him would be a disaster. But the magic drove it from her brain until all she could think about was the pulsating need to touch his ivory pale skin, to slide her naked body against his. The need to take him in and complete the spell.
His arms wrapped around her and he crushed her mouth with his. He tasted of wild mint and fresh air, and she devoured his mouth with her own. Liquid heat spilled through her, power surging through her body and into him though her palms, her skin, and the connection of their lips.
He kissed her with an unstoppable hunger and she lost all sense of where she was and who she was, surrendering to his heat and the hunger of the magic skimming along her skin.
Kian’s fingers played down her back, skimming her waist, her hips, and stroking along the curve of her ass. She shuddered. He pulled her on top of him where he lay on the stone floor, and she went eagerly, rubbing along his length and settling him between her legs, something deep inside her acknowledging that even here, he was perfect. She rubbed back and forth, and he kissed her, desire spiraling deep inside her core.
She delved deeper, and the power chased in and out, building her lust to a frenzy of desire. “Now,” she commanded, and he lifted her up and balanced her on his tip. She paused on the edge of ecstasy before she lowered on to his shaft, widening and stretching to take his full length in.
Magic slammed through her, and she came hard, his fingers digging into her hips, moving her up and down as he seized and orgasmed with a few bare thrusts.
Power flared. Light exploded and died away. The last of the blue wards on the pentacle faded, and they were left curled one on top of the other inside the dome of her protective circle.
“What the hell just happened?” She’d done what she never thought she could. She’d worked a major healing spell and it had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams, ending in sex with a man who quite possibly was one of the sexiest men she’d ever seen. A man whom she’d never see again after tonight.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kian stared into Bryanna’s eyes, panting hard, and watching the silvery power slip away from her skin. The spell dissipated around them, and suddenly he felt the cold hard stones of the workroom floor digging into his back.
“Hi,” he said.
Her lips curved up a small amount and her chin ducked down. She started to get off of him.
His cock slipped out and he gripped her hips reflexively. “Stay. Please.” He didn’t want her to leave. He wanted to hold onto this moment and their shared pleasure. He had a strong feeling that if she got up, he’d lose whatever ephemeral bond held them together. “I just want to enjoy this, enjoy you, for a moment longer.”
She flushed under her tan. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know the spell would ask for this.” She waved her hands along their bodies. “Those damn faded lines.”
“Don’t be sorry.” He grinned. “I’m not. The Goddess sometimes surprises us.”
She squirmed, and he reluctantly relaxed his fingers, let his hands drop from her hips, and released her.
Hands.
Adrenaline spiked in his blood, kicking him into fight or flight mode and giving him nowhere to go. Kian sat up and stared at his trembling hands, flexing, and fisting, and turning them back and forth, his heart thundering in his throat. “You did it,” he rasped out.
He took inventory of his body from all ten of his toes, to his overgrown hair, wondering at the gift that was his flesh. He hadn’t really let himself hope that a mere witch could do what years of his struggles hadn’t been able to achieve——the banishment of his mother’s curse.
Bryanna rose, picked up her knife, and closed the circle down. He barely registered her thanks to the Goddess and the four guardian directions as she blew out the candles. “How does it feel?” she asked and picked up her robe, wrapping and belting it tight.
He had to stop and think. Power licked inside his veins, sparkling under his skin. He stood and stretched. “It feels marvelous.” Being himself felt better than anything he could remember in his entire three hundred and seventy-five years of existence.
She brought him his cloak, and he tossed it to the side. He couldn’t stop looking at his body. He wanted to make sure it was real, that he wasn’t going to wake up and discover it all had been fantasy, and he was still cursed.
“So what’s next?”
Tearing his attention away from his newly rediscovered skin, he looked at Bryanna. She glowed with the aftermath of sex and magic, her golden skin sheened with a light coating of sweat.
“I want to do everything.” He reached out a finger and stroked her cheek, the pleasure of touching a woman with his own skin sang inside him. “I want to run……to leap…to make love to you all night long.”
Sweet confusion flushed across her face. “But we just…”
He laughed, the first true, honest laugh he could remember since his mother had broken his followers and cursed him to be a beast. “I know, it’s crazy. But I’ve been alone for what feels like forever. You’re beautiful, and I want to use my body the way it’s mean to be used.” He picked up her hand, laid his lips across her wrist, and brushed a soft kiss across the fragile skin. Blood pulsed under the surface, an answering pulse thrummed in his veins. The animal he’d been for years surged under his skin, and he opened his mouth, sucking gently, while what he really wanted to do was dig his teeth in and bite down hard.
She made a small sound, and he raised his head, keeping her hand possessively enveloped in his. “I’m bursting with energy,” he said, his voice low and vibrating with restraint. “I want to kiss your neck, your breasts, your belly. I want to lay my head between your thighs and taste you. I want to find a bed, lay you out on the sheets, and pleasure you until you come screaming under my mouth.”
Her eyes widened.
A pang of uneasiness flashed through him. For a split second, he thought she might refuse, and he fought the urge to swing her up over his shoulder and carry her to his rooms.
Then a wicked grin crept across her face. “Oh, what the hell,” she said. She laced her fingers through his and tugged him to the door. “What’s a few more hours? I’m not leaving until dawn anyway.”
Kian grabbed a lit torch on their way out and followed her into the hall.
In the corridor, she hesitated. “I’m not exactly sure which w
ay my room is from here.”
He dropped her hand and pointed right. “That way leads to the library and all the rooms we use, including your room.” He pointed left down into the shadows and lifted the torch to illuminate a solid wooden door, studded with iron nails and bolted with a heavy bar. “Don’t go that way. Stay to the rooms you’ve already seen and you should be safe in this section of the warren.” He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. The silk of her skin on his lips sent tremors into nerves deprived of female company for far too long. “Now, shall we be off?”
He tugged her down the hall in the direction of her room, her slender hand nested inside his larger one. He couldn’t stop the elation, or the grin stretching his face wide.
She cast a long look over her shoulder and down the hall at the locked and barred door. “Why is it sealed off?”
“When I arrived here the whole place was filled with goblins. Not just the hobgoblins, but all kinds of nasty, vicious types. Beezel and I cleared them out of this section, but they remain in the outer halls.”
“Outer halls? You mean that’s also the way to the surface?”
Something about the way she said the words gave him pause. She’d want to leave soon.
He shook his head. “One of the ways out,” he said. He didn’t want to think about her leaving just yet. He wanted to sink himself inside her soft wet folds, ravage her tender breasts, immerse himself so deep in her he forgot that he still had a quest to finish. “Forget that for now. Tonight, we celebrate!”
Picking her up, he swung her around, her startled squeals echoing as her heels skimmed close to the sides of the narrow hall. Her robe slid open, and the lighthearted gesture turned serious.
His smile faded. “Oh yes, I want to celebrate,” he whispered and slid her down his body, skin to skin, until her slightly parted lips reached his. And he stole a kiss.
He’d kissed her earlier, but this one was different. He toyed with her, brushing softly against that full lower lip. She sighed into his mouth and he slid his tongue in, slowly tasting her, learning the texture and shape of her mouth. “Honey-sweet,” he murmured and delved deep into the delicious delicate flavor again, losing all sense of time and place. Losing himself in discovering Bryanna’s kiss.
Something bumped his ankle. He dropped her to her feet, fingers spreading, knuckles tight, and tried to extend his claws. A flurry of white shapes scooted down the hall, hooting and screaming.
“Invasive creatures.” He relaxed and faced her again.
Bryanna stared at him, wide-eyed, and tucked her robe tight around her body. He looked at his hand and gave a bitter laugh. “Fifteen years of wielding claws instead of a sword, it might take a while to civilize me again.”
She smiled and extended her hand. A tension he hadn’t realized was there dropped away. He couldn’t wait to get into her room and into her bed. “Come on.” He seized her hand and ran down the hall, pulling her after him.
She laughed as she ran. “Kian, slow down! I can’t keep up.”
He slowed and stopped, caging her between his arms and pressing her against the door of her room so she would feel how much he wanted her. “I want to delve into you.” He brushed his lips against hers, and she opened to him. “Discover you.” He flicked his tongue inside, and she gasped. “Devour you.”
This kiss was deep, his tongue stroking inside her mouth, sending tiny, hot pulses to his cock pressed against her belly. He didn’t understand this intense need for her and he wanted to explore it further. She was human. His people kept them as pets and lovers, visited their Earth for fun. Created havoc in their lives just to see what would happen. And yet, as he tasted her mouth, knowing he’d had her once, knowing this kiss was only a precursor to sex, he had a strange feeling that by the morning, he was going to want to taste her again.
The door opened, and they fell in, laughing as the moment broke. Bryanna’s eyes shining like the stars he hadn’t seen for years.
He stripped her of her robe and they stumbled their way to the bed, their hands roaming along each other’s bodies in a race of discovery. She fell back onto the mattress and he hesitated, drinking her in. A tremor of near-starving desire raced through him.
They’d just had sex and he knew they had all night, yet he couldn’t wait. He lay down on top of her and pressed his nude body into hers. The feel of actually having skin, real skin, to slide against her smooth, satiny flesh rushed effervescent along his veins, lighting him up with a fire that he doused again and again in her kiss.
She was fresh and open and seductively sweet. Her near innocence made everything seem new to his jaded appetite. Of course, it had been far too long since he’d dallied like this. Maybe that was it. Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it was only his loneliness and isolation that made every touch zing along his skin.
He delved deeper into her mouth and stopped thinking.
She widened her legs. He moved between them and pressed his tip into her sex. Her surprised indrawn breath traced its own fingers along his senses and he shuddered. He was ready to plunge in, he was ready to take his time. He wanted to do everything, try everything, as if it were the first time.
Her nipples had peaked and he couldn’t resist them any longer, angling his head to nip and suck at their tight furls. Her hands stroked his shoulders, his back, dipped down his spine and along his ass. He leaned up and kissed down her throat, burying his face in the crook of her neck where she smelled of hot roses and magic.
Inserting his fingers between their pressed together bodies he found her center and slid them inside. Her folds were slick from their spelled encounter and she clenched around him. “Oh!”
He smiled. She was his.
He backed up so he could watch her face. Moving in and out of her expertly, the feel of her core tightening around his fingers, watching her respond, excited him as much as if she’d been clenched around his cock.
“Kian,” she panted. “I’m ready…… so ready.”
“I’m not, not yet.” He pushed his fingers in just a little farther and she arched her hips up, her face flushing pink under her tan. “I’ve been dreaming about doing this to you,” he said. “And not just this. I want to taste you.” He trailed his tongue down her torso. “Your waist.” And over her navel. “Your belly.” And down between her legs, just above where his slick fingers moved in and out. “All of you, I want to taste it all.” He inhaled, and her scent had him bowing his head and licking the sensitive nub at the top of her folds.
She made a soft sexy sound in the back of her throat as he worked it with his mouth until her hips rose and fell, and her hands flailed at her sides. He licked and sucked, applying just the right pressure and working her clit until her pleasure-sounds were incoherent, and he couldn’t restrain himself any longer.
“Bryanna?”
“Hmm?” Her voice was drowsy.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said, her sexy eyes going deep emerald. “Absolutely yes.”
He moved up and kissed her, spreading her taste onto and into her mouth. She reached down, guiding him in, and he had to shut his eyes and count to ten so he wouldn’t shove himself in deep, and come too soon. He wanted more than that this time. He wanted everything.
Her taste, her mouth, her pleasure. And above all he wanted that soft, lower lip.
A shaky kind of control reestablished, he moved deeper and deeper, her body holding him tightly inside until she dug her fingernails into his back and shuddered. Her small groans urging him on he sank his teeth deep into her lower lip, biting into the flesh as she came. Triggering his own release.
He let go and nuzzled her neck. She lay there, her deep green eyes blinking at him in the aftermath.
“That was wonderful,” she said. “You were wonderful.” And for a moment, something akin to fear skated through him.
He’d had many lovers. Sex at the Black Court was always available, sometimes political, and occasionally a weapon. But never had he had s
omeone give herself to him the way Bryanna did. She kissed him without apprehension, without motive, without restraint.
And he’d responded. He’d given her pleasure without expectations, something he’d never done for anyone. And it scared the hell out of him.
She wasn’t sure why she was doing this. Yes she was. Bryanna curled up with Kian, warm and sated in the aftermath of their—was it lovemaking? Parts of it had been tender, and parts intense, but throughout it all she’d been more than aware that this was Kian. The person she’d only known as an animal, but was truly a complex man.
“Tell me something about yourself,” she said.
“Like what?” He picked up her hand and placed small kisses along the back.
She shivered. She could do it again. Make love, have sex, she didn’t care what she called it. She wanted more. “We’ve really only talked about your curse, what about your life before that?” They could spend all night indulging their bodies, but she was suddenly hungry to know more about him.
He sighed. “Let’s see—” He lay back on the pillows, pulling her into the curve of his body and wrapping his right arm around under her breast. “I played, I hunted, I explored the worlds.”
“Well that’s specific. What about when you were small?” Her ass was tucked nicely into his groin and, for the moment, it was the only place she wanted to be. Tomorrow would come soon enough and she’d be rested and refreshed and ready to take up her burdens. Tonight would likely be the last time she had shelter and safety for a long time. And Kian. She would never have him again.
“Tell me about your family.”
He didn’t answer for so long, she wasn’t sure he would. “I’m not close to my family. My father died before I was born, we never spoke of him. My mother was very busy, she left my raising mostly to servants.”
“You mean you had family, but they just left you to strangers?” She couldn’t even fathom it. “My family is so close, we’ve barely spent time apart over the years.” She squashed down the pain that came with the memories. She would be leaving first thing in the morning and she would track them down. Kian had promised he would take on the Black Queen for the MacElvys. Someday they’d be able to live without running.
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