by Julie Leto
“Fuck oft mate. I don’t see a ring on Cat’s linger. You’ve been together for more than a year. What the hell is up with that, Mr. Romance?”
He nodded as he shuffled to the door. “You’re one-hundred-percent right. And since I don’t want to lose the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I’m going to rectify the situation very soon. What are you going to do?”
If only she knew.
***
“There isn’t much time,” Rafe said, charging back into the hotel room shortly after Ben had left.
Mariah jumped and turned away from the window. “What’s wrong?”
“This is wrong,” he said, tearing off his shirt, sweeping her into his arms and kissing her as if he’d never kissed her before.
He waited for her to surrender to the sensations, to melt into his arms as she’d done by the waterfall or at the cabin. But her resistance was palpable. If he let her go, she’d try to speak. Ask questions. He did not want to hear her voice unless she was screaming his name in pleasure.
During the hotel tour, Catalina had explained how his brothers Damon, Aiden and Paxton had been freed from Rogan’s curse. She’d been entirely certain that it wasn’t mere exclamations of love that broke the spell, but the sentiment—the true and honest surrender of one’s soul to another, as he’d once had with Irika.
And only Mariah could help him.
He’d never imagined sharing his soul with another woman. And yet, he knew Mariah did not love easily. In another time and place, he might have coaxed and seduced her emotions to the surface. But did he have that much time left?
After centuries of torturous solitude, he had a rare and precious opportunity to rebuild bonds with his brothers. Paxton, known to the others as Paschal, did not have much time left on this earth. When he met the others again, he wanted to do so as a man. Free of Rogan’s infection.
But Mariah had to love him. And he knew she didn’t.
Not yet.
“Rafe,’ she said, pulling away from him.
“The dawn approaches.” He held her tighter. “I need you, Mariah.”
“Did something happen?”
“Is the magic the only reason you believe I would want you?”
She pushed completely out of his arms and turned back to the window. “If you were smart, you wouldn’t want me at all.”
He wrapped his arms around her middle, standing snug against her so she could feel the fullness of his desire. “My need for you defies the mind. Let me make love to you, Mariah. Allow me to undress you. The sun is less than an hour away. I cannot rest until I’ve felt you beneath me.”
She dropped her hands to her sides in surrender, and one by one, he undid each of the buttons on her blouse, plying her shoulders, neck and arms with kisses. He peeled the material away, and then removed her pants, leaving her in only her lacy lingerie.
She moved to shut the curtains, but he stopped her, blinked and doused the lights behind them, bathing her in the amber lights shining in from outside the suite. He inhaled the sweet scent of her until surrender rolled off her skin and eased the darkness that had sparked within him. That was the last bit of Rogan’s magic he’d use tonight. He wanted her elementally, deeply—and as a human man. Or at the very least, as close to a human man as he could be while still ensnared by magic.
He nibbled at the skin on her neck while he unhooked the contraption that buoyed her breasts.
“You taste so sweet,” he murmured, invigorated by the sound of her sigh as he dragged the material away from her body. “And you feel,” he whispered, cupping her with both hands, loving the weight of her, “like satin.”
He flicked his thumbs over her nipples, which were already erect with wanting. When she cooed, he tweaked her harder and took her earlobe into his mouth, sucking to a rhythm that made her push her backside hard against his engorged cock.
“Yes,” he said. “This pleases you?”
“Oh, yeah,” she admitted.
He nipped at her pulse point, feeling the jump in her blood. “Your heartbeat is quickening. Where else can you feel it? Show me.”
She drew one hand down the other arm, wrapping her fingers around her wrist.
He smoothed his palm down her arm, lifted her wrist to his lips and suckled the succulent inside skin where her veins pulsed.
“Where else? You feel it deeper; I know you do. Show me.”
With a whimper of acquiescence, she slipped her finger down her panties.
“Oh, yes,” he encouraged. “That’s where you beat for me the strongest. Where your body slickens. Test how wet you are, Mariah. Tell me you want me as badly as I need you.”
He pinched her nipples hard, then soothed the sensitive nubs with his thumbs. He had no idea where his brazen questions came from, except his need to be whole. Human. Real. Not just in the night, but in the sun. He wanted to exist in the light with equal longing to mate with her. The needs were just as overpowering. And just as intertwined.
She moved her hand, but he snared her wrist and guided her fingers back to her panties.
With a moan, she understood what he wanted to see her do. Gooseflesh blossomed across her skin as she slipped a finger inside. Her body quivered. His cock pulsed and he found himself mimicking her rhythm, wanting desperately to join her pleasured crescendo. But not before he showed her—not before he made promises with his body that he could not make in words, knowing that nothing would send Mariah running faster in the other direction than sentiments she could not return.
“Rafe, please,” she begged, tugging her panties off and attempting to pry his hands from her breasts. “You’re driving me crazy.”
“That’s the idea,” he replied, turning her once so he could kiss her long and hard. But when she lifted her leg to his waist, he spun her around again. “No, no. Not yet.”
“But the sun…” Her words faded when he dropped to his knees and kissed her curvy bum.
“Don’t worry about the sun. Don’t worry about anything. Just feel me all over your body. Touching you. Wanting you. Imprinting your flavors on my tongue.”
He turned her then, pushed her up against the slim windowsill and spread her legs so he could feast. And pleasure. His first curl of a kiss started her climax, but he tormented her for as long as he could, suckling and licking and flicking his tongue across and into the soft folds of her sex until her legs nearly gave way. Then he lifted her and carried her to the bedroom.
Once he had her in the sheets, he finished undressing, then pressed the button that opened all the curtains in the room. The view of the hotel grounds and the city beyond wasn’t as intoxicating as the jungle, but the sparkle of lights and the soft sway of the tall palms provided the perfect backdrop for lovemaking in this new world.
She held her arms out to him. He stayed at the edge of the bed, staring at her, drinking in every inch of glistening flesh, encircling his sex with his hand. Contact with his rigid state nearly caused him to jump out of his skin.
She moved toward him. “Let me,” she begged.
“No,” he replied. “I want you to see how much I need you.”
She plumped the pillows behind her, her tongue moistening her lips as she drew her knees apart and matched him touch for touch.
The luscious pink folds of her vulva tempted him, taunted him, the moisture clinging there glimmering in the light. He tightened his grip, imagining the snug fit of his sex within hers, of the friction of him squeezing into her tight, hot channel. Her tawny curls drew his eyes and, with the flavor of her still on his tongue, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could resist her. When a drop of his seed met his hand, he knew he’d waited long enough. He crawled over to her, took one last long lick of her sex, then trailed a path to her breasts, suckling hard on one and then the other before joining with her in one deliciously long squeeze of flesh into flesh.
“Rafe,” she gasped, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist and clinging to him as if her life depended on it, when, in truth, the revers
e was true.
He retreated for a torturous second before pressing harder and deeper inside her. “So beautiful. So perfect.”
He took her hands in his and trapped them above her head. She arched her back to meet his thrusts and he lost all control. They crashed together, pumping, crying out, pleasuring and taking pleasure until the room began to spin.
He was hard and thick and hot—she was wet and warm and unbound. When she clenched around him and spasmed with release, he drove harder and deeper until his seed spilled and his body shook with unparalleled satisfaction.
When he finally fell, spent, beside her, he was as drenched in sweat as she.
“Rafe,” she said, though the sound this time was more like a question.
He glanced up at her, but his vision blurred. The sun would break through the horizon soon. Streaks of pink already taunted him from the skyline outside.
“I don’t want to let you down,” she confessed.
He forced a small grin, “You’ve made a living taking valuable items for other people. Maybe this time, it’s time to take something of deeper worth just for yourself.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could find the words, Rafe faded away.
Twenty Two
Farrow Pryce stroked the handle of the sword, his head pounding, before he pressed the spot between his eyebrows with the cool metal hilt. Despite months of his trying to retrieve it, Rogan’s magic remained elusive. The power had saved him from death, but not injury. His recovery had been hard and long. Pain still plagued him, forcing him to rely on pharmaceuticals for the first time in his life. Until recently, he’d barely had a clear enough mind to access capital from his offshore accounts and summon his most loyal K’vr followers to his cause without alerting the Council.
Now he was stronger. Sharper. He’d returned to the hill country estate he’d abandoned shortly after Gemma’s betrayal with Paschal Rousseau. With the old man’s expertise, he might have dominance over the magic by now, but the bitch had beaten him to the punch. He’d been left on his own to figure out exactly what the sword was and how it related to the legends and lore of Lord Rogan. His investigations had led him to Mariah Hunter.
Somehow, she possessed magic. He had no illusions that the mysterious black fog that had eased her escape had been created by natural phenomena. The moment she’d disappeared, the fog had dispersed. She must have had the stone nearby and somehow used the powers within. Or else she’d tapped into the magic in the sword. He’d managed to call upon it once or twice, but without knowing precisely how.
He’d hoped Mariah Hunter would clue him in, but she’d escaped before he could persuade her to share her knowledge.
It would not happen again.
In his wildest imaginings, he’d never dreamed such power could literally be at his fingertips. Just holding the sword, running his hand down the smooth part of the honed blade, caused a ripple of excitement through his body that wasn’t unlike good sex. Not that he’d had much of that, lately. Since Gemma had left, he’d found few women interesting, except for an occasional quick fuck to work off pent-up energy. Tab A into slot B. Nothing inventive. Nothing surprising. Even the kinkiest kink didn’t do it for him, not when the part of his brain that controlled his lust was obsessed with possessing a magic darker and more powerful than he’d ever believed.
The door to his room burst open and the young punk, Topher Pyle, rounded on him with a mad gleam in his eyes.
“We found her,” he exclaimed.
Farrow stood, instinctively covering the sword with the quilt on the bed.
“Mariah Hunter?”
Pyle shook his head, his sharp teeth gleaming in the sunlight. “Gemma.”
Farrow eased back into his favorite chair. “Where is she?”
Pyle’s smile faltered. “Gone now, but she broke into the K’vr mansion. She and the old man.”
So she was still keeping company with the fossil. “And you know this how?”
Pyle lifted his chin. “I’ve still got contacts with the elders.”
Farrow sniffed derisively. The elders. Pitiful fools. They’d taken their time in choosing a successor to the grand apprenticeship, he now knew, in an attempt to appropriate the vast K’vr holdings for themselves. Farrow should have seen it sooner, but it wasn’t until after his so-called death, when they’d attempted to obtain his personal assets as well, that he’d realized their scheme. They weren’t merely a half dozen men trying to make the best decision for an organization that had lasted centuries. With no direct heir for succession, they’d been plotting to usurp every drop of K’vr wealth they could get their hands on—including his. Without a designated leader, they were free to rule as they wished.
“Did she take anything from the manse?” he asked.
Since the death of Gemma’s father, the K’vr rarely used the old house. Only a small contingent remained to examine and catalog the archives, and even that exercise had been mostly abandoned without a leader to oversee the work.
Pyle’s oily grin returned. “Took paperwork. Mostly on the items the K’vr had been looking for under Grand Apprentice David and Grand Apprentice Stuart.”
“Her grandfather and a great-great-uncle, if I remember my Von Roan family tree correctly,” Farrow surmised.”She took nothing from the archives itself?”
Pyle shrugged. “There’s so much junk, no one is sure. She left footprints, and some china shit got smashed, but otherwise, it didn’t look like anything was missing.”
“Any idea where she went next?”
“Someone saw her driving out of the neighborhood with the old man, but the house had been abandoned. Something to do with radon gas. It was probably a trick, don’t you think?”
Farrow arched a brow and remained silent. The answer was obvious, though he had to wonder about the intelligence of the guard left behind if he was so easily fooled. Of course, his cohorts were not much better. He waved Pyle out of the room.
Once alone, he glared at the sword, thinking of how Gemma had betrayed him, how he’d been so blinded, at first, by her blood connection to Lord Rogan and by the inventive sex she gave so willingly. He had anticipated how she’d turn on him in the end. He’d believed that she wanted the leadership of the K’vr badly enough to help him to it and be satisfied to serve by his side.
Disgusted and infuriated, he imagined ways in which he could get rid of the elders and Gemma when the blade of the sword began to glow cobalt blue. Excited, he reached for the handle, but the light instantly faded.
Fury pulsed through him—how dared this tangle of gold and steel taunt him with promises of power it would not fulfill? He slashed the sword across the neck of a bust situated beside the window and, as the head of the former grand apprentice smashed to the ground, the magical light brightened. The blade shone as if it were forged from sapphire instead of steel.
Power surged up his arm. Images assailed him—striking visions of destruction and violence. Farrow leveled his free hand at the window, and with an earsplitting crash, shards of glass exploded outward. Fragments of the metal frame spiked like knives into the building across the courtyard, impaling the ancient brick. The blue metallic gleam started to fuse with his arm, imbuing him with what he’d been seeking for so long.
Rogan’s magic.
Exhilarated, he whooped in triumph. The glow extinguished. His arm dropped, too heavy for him to lift. The magic was gone, and if not for his leaning on the sword now piercing the carpet, he might have fallen over.
The door behind him burst open.
“What happened?” Pyle asked.
Despite the overwhelming need to collapse, Farrow forced himself to smile. He’d waited so long for this. So very long. To revel in his discovery was a luxury he would not deny himself.
Anger. Anger was the key. And he had plenty of that emotion stored up—particularly for Mariah Hunter, who’d thwarted him one too many times, and whose life he no longer had to spare.
***
When faced with insurmountable odds against success, Mariah always found it best to keep her plan simple. After arranging for hotel security to stay out of Mariah’s way, Ben and Cat had left. They would act as backup if called, but otherwise would remain out of sight. Mariah refused to put them in danger again because she’d left the damned coins behind in Mexico. Just before midnight, she and Rafe rode the elevator to the roof of the hotel alone.
After initially laughing at the selection of time and place, Pryce had agreed to her terms. She sensed he knew something that she didn’t—or at least, he believed he did. Neither Ben nor Cat knew what it could be—not even after checking, yet again, with the woman who reportedly had once been his coconspirator in some scheme to take over a cult Mariah had never heard of. In addition to consulting with Gemma Von Roan, Ben and Cat had tangled with Pryce six months previously, on the very night he’d taken a plunge off a California cliff. Since he was still alive, and after the mini-earthquake in Chiapas, she knew he had a rudimentary knowledge of how the sword worked. But what, if anything, did he know about the stone?
Paschal and Gemma had pored over the documents they’d taken from the archives and had found nothing about the marker. According to them, Mariah’s discovery of the youngest Forsyth brother had been pure dumb luck.
Or, as Paschal insisted, fate.
She’d never believed in fate before, but if it helped her get out of this mess, she was certainly willing to start.
Under other circumstances, Mariah might have suggested that Rafe use Rogan’s magic to retrieve the coins and finish Farrow Pryce off for good. Damon and Aiden Forsyth, from what she’d been told, would not have hesitated to act against such a dangerous enemy. But Rafe was different. He eschewed the power and the shadowy evil that invaded him whenever he used it. She could not ask a man who’d aspired to be his clan’s shaman to use Rogan’s magic to commit murder.
Velez had made her a marked woman. When he’d called her shortly after she’d finished setting up the meeting with Pryce, he’d explained in excruciating detail exactly how he would kill her if she didn’t cooperate and get his coins back.
