Kreja sighed. “Wise words, but that does not change what you have done. Not only did you free a slave, you freed your sister’s slave. For that, you will deal with Amelia in the battle arena. She will be armed. You will not. Afterward, if you survive, you will be whipped, as is our custom.”
The queen reached out—and wrapped her fingers around Nola’s suddenly solid forearm, dragging her toward the arena, Amelia close on her heels. Nola gasped in shock. What…why…how was it possible?
“I will not go easy on you,” Amelia snarled at her.
They can touch me. Which means they can hurt me, Nola realized, dread sweeping through her.
Would she be alive when Zane returned?
* * *
ZANE REACHED THE vampire stronghold and collapsed at its gates. His strength—gone. His wounds—unhealed. Followed as he’d been, he wouldn’t have been able to hunt for food. Broken as he was, he’d been unable to capture a single animal and feed himself.
Thankfully the guards recognized him. He was hefted over a shoulder and carted inside the palace. The touch disturbed him, but he didn’t fight it. He was in too much of a hurry and knew this was the best way. By the time they reached his personal chamber, there was a buzz of activity, his name being whispered from everyone’s lips.
“Blood,” he rasped as the guard lay him down on the bed.
That guard tilted his head, offering his own neck.
Zane shook his head and closed his eyes. “Glass.” He would not take from a living source. Still couldn’t stomach the thought—unless that living source was Nola. Once, when he’d ensured she would welcome him by invading her dreams, he had tasted her. The sweetness of her blood…the decadence of her moans…and he’d reveled in every nuance of her. He would not overshadow that precious memory by taking from someone else, even in his desperation.
How did she affect him this way?
Perhaps he did not mind her hands on him because he saw himself in her eyes. Saw vulnerability and pain, fear and yearning. Perhaps they shared a similar past; she’d alluded to such a thing once before, when they’d been pitted against each other on the island. That meant someone had hurt her at some point in her life. Hurt her deeply and unequivocally. Zane wanted to destroy that someone, bit by bit.
Warm hands settled on his shoulders and shook him.
His eyelids fluttered open, a growl in his throat. When he saw that Layel loomed above him, glass in hand, he forced himself to relax against the feathered mattress. “My king, I—”
“No talking just yet. Drink,” Layel said, placing the glass to his lips. Tall and leanly muscled, with white hair and blue eyes, he was an eerily beautiful sight that reminded Zane of both his rescue from the demon queen and the horrors he’d endured. “Drink.”
Zane opened his mouth, and the sweet nectar of life poured down his throat. He swallowed greedily. Once again, warmth spread through him. Warmth and strength and determination.
He had not lied to Nola. He was going back for her. He would conquer that damn camp and everyone inside it. Nola will not like that. Those women are her sisters.
Well, they damn well should not have tried to enslave him, he thought darkly. But he knew deep down that he wouldn’t hurt them. Not really. For Nola, he would simply send them on their way, claiming the camp as his own and remaining there until she could leave.
“Good now?” Layel asked.
“More,” he said when the supply ran out. He’d need every ounce of his strength to conquer the Amazons.
Layel cut his wrist, filled the glass with his own life force, and offered it up. This time, Zane was able to hold the glass on his own. He drained every drop. When he finished, he licked his lips and faced the king.
“I am ready to talk,” he said. “You escaped the gods and their island.” He grunted as his wrists and ankles popped back into place. “Did you win their game?”
The king’s lips slowly lifted in a grin. “Delilah did. She saved us both. We have been searching for you since the moment of our return, but the Amazons hid you well.”
“Have you news of my sister?” a female voice asked.
Zane looked past his king and saw Delilah standing in the doorway. She was petite in appearance, but as fierce as Nola on a battlefield. Her blue hair was falling around her shoulders, and worry was etched in the violet depths of her eyes.
“She is alive,” he told her, and she expelled a relieved breath. “And she is mine.”
“And does she agree with that statement?” Delilah’s head tilted to the side as she rubbed at her slightly rounded belly.
Slightly rounded. A baby? Layel was to become a father? An ache bloomed in Zane’s chest. He’d wanted children with Cassandra. Had dreamed of them. Yet that, too, had been denied him. Until…now?
With Nola… You cannot truly touch her, you fool. That dream is still dead. He couldn’t make himself care, however. As long as he had Nola, nothing else mattered.
“Well?” Delilah insisted.
Did Nola wish to belong to him? she’d asked. He thought so, yes. She had helped him. She had even wanted to go with him. But she was also a warrior to her core, an Amazon warrior at that, and they only tolerated men during mating season. He wanted far more than that. No matter the circumstances. He wanted what Layel and Delilah clearly had.
“We will see,” Zane said, kicking his legs over the bed.
“You only just returned,” Layel said. “Where are you going?”
“To get my woman.” This one, he wouldn’t let get away.
CHAPTER SIX
GRUNTS, GROANS AND the clang of metal against metal roused Nola from her troubled sleep. She wanted to rise, to see what was happening, but could not force her body into action. Her back was a mass of agony, the skin flayed completely. The rest of her, well, it had not fared much better during her battle with Amelia. Nola had won, her determination stronger than any weapon, but she had not emerged unscathed. There were deep sword slices all down her arms, stomach and legs.
She lay on her bed, her stomach pressed into soft blankets. Alone, always alone. No one was allowed to help her. Not in any way. Amazons healed as slowly as humans, so she knew she would suffer like this for many weeks to come.
Outside, a scream echoed. Her muscles were heavy as stones, and she didn’t have the strength to drag herself upright. Or gather food. Not that she even had the strength to eat. She wanted to help her sisters, though. Despite what had been done to them, she loved them.
“You will die for this, vampires!” someone shouted.
“Not by your hand,” she heard a male voice say. The vampire king?
Despite her pain, Nola grinned. Relaxed. Zane was here.
For hours, the battle continued to rage. Nola didn’t want her sisters injured, but neither did she want Zane to lose, and waiting proved difficult. She chewed at her cheeks, dug her nails into her palms and broke into a sweat, which caused her back to burn as if it had been set on fire.
Finally, the tent flap rose and light flooded inside. And then he was there, standing in front of her. Her vampire. Zane. Her heart knocked against her ribs.
“Knew you’d come,” she said, her voice barely audible. She hadn’t screamed during her whipping, hadn’t made a sound, but holding her cries inside had scraped her throat raw.
“Nola…sweet…” He approached her slowly, as if she were a trapped animal. “ What did they do to you?” There was horror in his tone. He crouched beside her, reached out and smoothed her hair from her damp forehead. Then he froze. “How is this possible? I’m touching you.”
“Yes. Happened just after you’d left.” Any other time, she would have been mortified for him to see her like this: broken, helpless, naked but for a sheet covering her lower half. Her relief at seeing him alive and well, however, was simply too great.
“I will destroy the gods for this. I will find a way to raid the heavens and I will—”
“No, no. This is a blessing. I’ve had time to think, and I beli
eve I know what’s happening. Each time I admit something about you, like the fact that you did not deserve what was done to you, and that I trust you, I’ve been given back a piece of my life.”
His brows furrowed together, and a spark of hope entered his eyes. “Can you pass the camp boundary?”
“No. My sisters carried me there, meaning to toss me out, but that invisible wall blocked them.”
Fury replaced the hope. “We didn’t hurt your sisters—I knew you would hate it if we did, but now I wish I’d sliced each and every one of them to pieces. They abandoned camp or I would see to it now.”
“You’re here now. That’s all that matters. But…how long will you be able to stay?” Her nervousness returned. His king would want him back. And the Amazons would one day come back. “You can’t remain forever and I can’t leave. We’ll be forced to separate again and—”
“It’s all right. It’s all right, sweet. I’m here, and I’m not leaving without you. No matter what. You freed me. I will find a way to free you.”
The burst of strength her nervousness had given her drained, and she expelled a breath. “As long as I have you, I’ll be all right.”
“Yes, you will.” He stretched out beside her and angled his head, displaying his neck to her. The scent of him filled her nose. Dark spice and tree dew. She inhaled deeply, savoring.
“Drink,” he said.
“Wh-what?” Even when they’d been trapped on that island, he had not let anyone drink from him. Not from his wrist, and certainly not from his neck.
“Drink. I know biting and blood are distasteful to your kind, but you will heal faster if my blood flows inside your veins.”
“No, you don’t understand. I don’t mind drinking from you. I just don’t want to disgust you. I know you do not like such things being done to you.”
“I want to give you everything, Nola. Even this. With you and no other. I need this, so please. Please.”
Please, this proud, strong man had said. How could she deny him? She cried out as she edged toward him and sank her teeth into his neck, hard as she could, cutting past skin and hitting vein. Blood instantly trickled down her throat. Once, the thought of doing this would have been distasteful to her, as he’d claimed. But this was Zane. She wanted him inside her. Any part of him that she could get. And like him, she wanted him to have everything she had to give.
“I never thought to allow someone to take from me again,” he said, petting her head. “The demon queen, I was her slave for many centuries and she took from me whenever and however she desired. Her methods sickened me, but I allowed them because she had something—someone—my compliance was supposed to purchase. Did I ever tell you that?”
He was trying to distract her from her task, she suspected, as the warmth of his blood spun through her, lighting her up from the inside out. But she did not stop, because she wanted to hear more.
“When she died and I was freed, I thought to never endure such things again. You, though, I think I would allow to do anything to me. It has been that way since the first. I don’t understand it, either. Your presence doesn’t drown out the memories or take away my revulsion for this act with others. My…need for you simply overrides it. But why do I need you, do you think?”
Finally she pulled from him. She didn’t move away, but snuggled into his waiting embrace, head cradled in the hollow of his neck. The action pained her, but only a little. She could feel the flesh weaving together on her back.
“When I was a child, my mother mated with a man and left the Amazon camp to live with him. They had no money and so they…sold me, time and time again,” she said, heat spreading over her cheeks. “I know the desire to never again be touched by another. But with you…”
“Oh, sweet. I am so sorry.”
That gentle tone brought tears to her eyes.
He wrapped his arm around her, careful of her injuries. “You once told me your family had destroyed you, that you had killed them for it, but I had no idea they’d done such things to you,” he said.
She flattened her palm against his chest, exactly as she’d wanted to do all these months while watching him. His heart beat, fast and hard. “Maybe we remind each other of what we were like, before. Unafraid, untainted. Maybe we see the future in each other and the past ceases to matter.”
He didn’t reply, which disappointed her. Instead, he settled her onto the blankets and sat up, which angered her. Did he not want a future with her? Was that what his silence signified? Did he—
He traced a fingertip along her spine, and she shivered. “All healed,” he said huskily. “And now, all mine.”
She wasn’t sure what she would have done if he’d rebuffed her as she’d once done him.
“Make love to me, Zane.” She’d never been with a man of her choosing. Never given herself completely. She was suddenly desperate to know what that was like. With this man. Only this man, who was surely a gift from the heavens, even amid her curse. “Please.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
ZANE FLIPPED NOLA to her back so that she was peering up at him. A gasp escaped her, but she didn’t try to scramble away, even though he loomed above her, dressed in his blood-splattered battle clothes while she was naked.
Her breasts were small but firm, perfectly tipped with hard pink nipples. Her stomach was flat, her skin sun-kissed and smooth. He could see every ridge of her ribs and knew she hadn’t eaten since his departure six days ago. Damn her sisters! Had she not already been through enough torment, without her tribe adding to it?
He was going to burn away the images of what they’d done to her. Burn away the memories of the men who had used her. He would replace both with thoughts of himself. He didn’t care what he had to do to accomplish it.
“Have you ever experienced pleasure in the act?” he asked.
Up and down her chest rose with the force of her breathing. “No. You?”
“Long, long ago.” He only prayed he remembered how to please his woman. With the demon queen, he hadn’t cared to try. He’d simply endured. Never had a female’s enjoyment been more important to him. “If I scare you, do something you don’t like, tell me.”
She nodded, nervously licked her lips. “You tell me, as well.”
It was his turn to nod. Rather than suck on her nipples as he desired, he lifted himself off her, reached behind him and tugged off his shirt. He tossed it aside. His boots and pants quickly followed, leaving him as bare as she was.
Nola’s gaze traveled the length of him, and fire leapt inside her turquoise eyes. “Zane…”
“Afraid?”
“No. You won’t hurt me. I just wanted you to know I like what I see.”
Her trust emboldened him, as did her praise. Gently he eased atop her. Skin against skin, hardness against softness. They moaned in unison. Contact with anyone else, even his king, was hell. Contact with Nola was heaven. Her legs opened, allowing him a deep cradle.
“I want to kiss you now,” he said.
Only when she whispered her consent did he lean down and press his lips against hers. Softly at first, barely even a touch. But the sweet scent of her was in his nose, her nipples hard against his chest, her thighs pliant against his, and soon he had to have more. He licked at her, and her lips eagerly parted. His tongue glided past their teeth to intertwine with hers.
He’d had her blood, but he’d never had her mouth. To his delight, this was even better. Sweeter, headier, not for living or healing or even to relieve hunger, but simply for pleasure. It was addictive, and he wondered how he’d gone without this for so long.
Tentatively, she tangled her hands in his hair. And at first, her tongue was hesitant against his. Seeking, as if she wasn’t sure what to do with it. But the more he explored her mouth, the bolder she became. Soon their teeth were banging together, their bodies writhing against each other. Sweat was beading over his skin, his blood heating as though lava flowed in his veins.
“Going to…suck your…breasts now,” he mana
ged to say between pants. “Like that?”
“Yes. Yes.” She, too, was panting. She, too, was sweating. Her eyes were closed and her head was thrashing from side to side.
I did that. Pride filled him as he lowered his head, fitting his lips around one tight little pearl. He laved it with attention before turning to the other one—careful, so careful to deliver pleasure without any sting.
When he kissed his way down her stomach, she quivered and gasped his name.
“Stop?” he asked. Would be difficult, but he would find a way.
“More.”
Never had he been more determined in his life. He would know this woman, every inch of her. Nothing would be prohibited. Body, mind…soul. Mouth watering, he licked between her legs. Wet, wild, wanton.
A memory of doing this very thing to the demon queen slipped into his mind. He’d once hated this act—until he’d tried it on Nola on that island. Oh, how he had enjoyed doing so, which had shocked him. Since then, he’d craved it—another shock. He wanted this to last forever. Nola was precious, a treasure, her cries a drug for his ears. Do not think about the demon. She has no place in this wondrous moment.
“Like?” Please, please, please.
“Mmm, yes. Before, they just ripped at my clothes and shoved their way—”
“No, no. None of that.” As she’d spoken, she’d stopped writhing. Had released her death grip on his hair. “That does not belong between us. It’s just you and me in this bed. You and me.”
Her eyes were luminous as she nodded. “Bite me, then. Take my blood and remind me that my vampire is claiming me.”
“No. No, I can’t.”
“Because you do not take from living beings?” she asked hesitantly.
“You, I would gladly take from. Anytime you would have me.” It was the truth. “But as I told you, I know your kind abhors that, and I will never ask you to do anything you do not want to do. I will find my nourishment elsewhere.”
“No!” she shouted, and it was a soldier’s cry. She might appear delicate, but she truly had the soul of a warrior. “You will only ever take from me.”
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