Probably, but that didn’t mean I was happy sitting here twiddling my thumbs. “My phone?”
“Vritra has it.”
I slumped back on my pillow. “And where is Vritra? Look, I can’t stay in bed while shit goes down. I need to be useful.”
Gita stared at me for a long beat. “Seriously? You’re allowing a bunch of witches to use you as a supernatural bridge and you think you’re not being useful?”
This sucked. “Where’s Vritra?”
She looked away. “He’s just wrapping up some business.”
Then why had her voice risen an octave? “Gita? What aren’t you telling me?”
She studied the sheets. “He told me not to say.”
In that case, I definitely needed to know. “Gita…” My tone held a warning.
She finally made eye contact. “I’m only telling you this because I honestly think you should know. The other asura have been badgering Vritra to find a mate for a while now.”
“What? But why? Why would they care?”
She blinked slowly, and scanned my face. “You honestly don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
She made a sound, something between a laugh and a snort. “There’s been some disagreement amongst the ranks about whether you’re oblivious or just stubborn. I was in the oblivious bank, but then recently, seeing you two together, I was beginning to wonder if you were just holding out.”
“Okay, what the hell are you talking about?”
She gnawed on her bottom lip. “Think of the asura as the fingers on a hand. They work well together and a slap from them can hurt.”
“Um... Okay.”
“But if they come together to form a fist, then they pack a mighty punch.”
“Makes sense, but what has that got to do with Vritra taking a mate?”
“Vritra is our leader, our king, and our allegiance to him binds us. But when the king takes a mate, his power grows and that power draws us together, connecting us on a divine level. When Vritra takes a mate we become a fist. With Malachi’s attack imminent, the asura need to be in top form. We need to be a fist.”
It was sinking in now. “And the asura think I know this and have deliberately been avoiding mating with Vritra?”
“Pretty much.” Her gaze grew intense. “But you haven’t, because you didn’t know. Do you love him, Carmella?”
“Yes!” I snapped my mouth closed. Shit. Where had that come from?
She smiled. “In that case, you better go claim your man before Laila gets her talons into him.”
“What?” Adrenaline flooded my shaky limbs “Where is he, Gita?”
“In the assembly room in the basement above the vault. He doesn’t know, but the asura are about to evoke an ancient law to force him to complete the mating ceremony tonight. They’ve chosen Laila as his mate.”
My dragon roared. He was mine. Mine. I was out of bed and at the door before the kiss of air on my bare skin prompted me to go back for my clothes. Gita helped me into them quickly, and then I was running as fast as my shaky legs could carry me.
***
The lifts would be too slow. Instead, I slammed through the doors leading to the stairs to the basement level with Gita at my heels and a raging inferno swirling in my chest. By the time I entered the chamber, my head was swimming and my legs were weak, as the adrenaline rush was sucked up by the anchor.
I was on a balcony above the real action.
Stairs to my left and right led down to the lower floor which was filled with asura—the younger generation and the older.
Vritra stood before them, jaw tense, eyes spitting embers. “You dare to compel me?” His voice was a low lethal warning.
One of the asura at the front spoke up, calm and level. “We are about to go into a battle with an enemy we cannot anticipate. We deserve to be at full strength when we do so. We know your preference, and we have been patient, but it has become obvious that your courtship has not been effective.”
“My courtship?” He spat the words. “You’re questioning my prowess with the feminine sex?”
Someone cleared their throat, but the spokesperson continued to speak. “Kings must make sacrifices for the good of their realm. We are your realm and your people. You owe it to us to take a mate, and since you have been reluctant, we have no choice but to evoke the right of election.”
Vritra’s face drained of color.
“Laila is a good choice. She’s asura. She is one of us.”
The tiny asura with the twin blades stepped forward. “I am not your first choice,” she said in a low sultry voice. “But I am confident that I can make you happy.”
Vritra shook his head. “This is ridiculous. Carmella is unconscious, unable to speak for herself, to accept or reject my proposal. A proposal I haven’t even yet made.”
“If she wanted you, surely she would have claimed you by now?” Laila asked. “She is needing, and still she does not turn to you for satisfaction.”
He tucked in his chin, shoulders rising and falling. “And if I refuse?”
“Then we are your asura no longer,” the spokesperson said. “You forfeit your right to rule and are no longer our king. We will fight for this world, but we will do it with a new leader at our helm.”
“And they’ll be weaker for it,” Gita whispered.
He raised his head to look at his people. “Then you shall have a new leader.”
I gripped Gita’s arm, my fingers pinching her flesh. No. He couldn’t; he couldn’t give up his rule for me.
A murmur lit up the crowd. It was obvious they hadn’t been expecting this turn of events. He’d turn them down, given up his throne for me. For me!
I needed to get down there, but my knees felt as if they were about to give way. And then Laila reached out and placed a hand on his bare chest. My vision homed in, focused on that point of contact—her hand, his chest.
Her fucking hand on my man’s chest.
This time, when my dragon slid from her box was sudden and silent and deadly. She slipped under my skin with a prickle and took my vision in a red haze. For a moment, there was a sense of serene undisputable calm between us, and then the needing flooded me in full force, gripping my brain with dragon claws, and burrowing into the tissue with one simple demand.
Claim.
The balcony was a minor obstacle, and as I took flight, I opened my mouth and roared. The world rocked and thunder filled the air as the ground shook beneath the impact of my body. The word was smaller and Laila was insignificant.
Claim.
I turned on Vritra, standing there with his shirt open, letting her touch him.
He’d let her touch him.
My rage was white hot needles piercing my brain, but there was something else too, a throbbing pulsing urge to rip his head off and kiss him at the same time.
“Carmella, it’s all right. Calm down.” Vritra backed up a step, his hands up in placating gesture. He kept his attention on me, his ember eyes filled with fire. “Out. Everybody, out now.”
It was as if I was looking at him from a vast height.
“Carmella, take a breath. It’s all right. Calm down.”
Calm down? He was telling me to calm down when he’d been letting Laila get all touchy feely with his pecs. Those pecs were mine! I advanced with another roar, vaguely conscious of the room emptying around me, and then Vritra was morphing before my eyes, changing into his formidable dragon form.
Dragon form.
I was in dragon form.
Euphoria tinged with fear pierced my brain and then the needing took over, and I attacked.
6
Vritra’s roar battered against my senses, his claws dug into my armored flesh, as he pulled me into a grapple and flipped me so I was pressed to the ground. I writhed, my rage a firestorm that needed an outlet.
“Carmella, please.” His voice was in my head, soothing and cool like a balm for a fever. “It’s all right. I don’t want her. I don’t want an
yone else.”
His words were a skewer puncturing the balloon of wrath in my chest. I batted at him, but the blows were now halfhearted. I raised my huge dragon head and looked down my scaly nose at him.
“Come back to me, Carmella,” he said.
And just like that I was melting. The ceiling rushed away from me and I closed my eyes, a low hiss escaping from between my teeth as our skin kissed.
I was back and so was he.
His thigh nestled between mine. Naked. We were naked. I opened my eyes and looked into lava.
“Carmella, you came to claim me.”
“Yes.”
“Not because you were needing.”
“No.”
He caressed my face with a gaze saturated with wonder and desire. “You want me.”
The needing was here, simmering under the surface of my skin, but under control now because it knew. “The needing knows I’ve found my mate.”
Vritra’s eyes flared and his tight control snapped, a growl vibrated in his chest and then he was devouring me with his kisses. We clawed at each other, nipping and sucking and biting, all tongue, teeth and nails. He was cinnamon and salt—his skin velvet over silk. The muscles of his arms flexed beneath my fingertips. I wanted to claim him, to mark him, to make him mine. I’d never felt such sexual violence before. It was the dragon, the needing, and the wanting. He licked my throat, scraping my collar bone with his teeth while his hands kneaded my breasts, tugging on my tight throbbing nipples, and then he was sucking, alternating between tongue and teeth and, damn, I needed more. I needed him to fuck me—the limited foreplay, balls-deep kind of fucking. He pressed himself between my thighs, his huge hard length sliding against my slick core.
I tore my mouth from his and pressed it to his ear. “Do it, please. I need you inside me now.”
He grasped my hips with his powerful hands and angled me. My body vibrated with anticipation, and then he thrust into me, filling me and tearing a cry of satisfaction from my throat.
Yes, yes, this was what I needed.
He began to move, slow at first then faster, deeper, harder. But it wasn’t enough. I needed to be closer. My dragon rose to the surface and together we flipped him onto this back. I reared up, one hand pressed to his chest to hold him down, to claim him as mine.
“Carmella.” My name was a low drawn out moan. “Fuck. You’re beautiful.”
His fingers tightened on my hips and I began to move. The tornado of desire inside me unraveled and melted over him, and something clicked inside, like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle in a complex scenario. His eyes widened and his mouth parted.
Mine.
I rode him hard, spiraling into a million pieces as I came again and again.
***
He carried me to his bed where silk sheets and a firm mattress awaited. The bond between us throbbed and ached, eager for more carnal connection, and from the look in Vritra’s eyes he was more than willing. His scent filled my head, as I brushed my fingers over his velvet skin, following the path with my mouth and tongue. He took the lead, pinning me to the bed with his body and playing me with deliberate execution. His power brushed against mine, teasing and tantalizing. Every caress, every lick or nip was designed to amplify the heat, until my skin was painfully sensitized and, by the time he entered me, I was begging for release, ready to tip over the edge with the slightest push. Our cries were a duet of desire echoing around the room in an orgasmic crescendo.
He rolled onto his side and pulled me against him
“I feel…amazing. How is this possible?” I turned my head to face him.
His breathing was still labored as he came down from the high. He made lazy circles on my shoulder with his index finger “You’ve chosen a mate and that means our dragons are now entwined. My power is yours if you need it, and right now you do.”
“So, you’re what? Channeling power into me?”
“You need it.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “I know you won’t be happy cooped up here with Malachi out there threatening your friends. Call Melody and do what you need to do. I’ll set up the mating ritual while you’re gone.”
I stared into his fathomless eyes. He didn’t have to let me go. He could have left me weak, kept me here with him where it was safe, but he knew what I needed. He knew me.
I ran a hand across the stubble on his jaw. “I’m sorry it took me so long to see.”
He leaned in, brushing his nose against my cheek before moving down to nuzzle my neck. The contact brought immediate heat to my blood and my body tightened in anticipation.
“I’m not sorry,” he said, his breath warm and enticing on my skin. “Every instant spent with you has been a gift, even the moments when your heart was elsewhere. I’ve loved you from the first moment I set eyes on you in that restaurant dining with Banner. I knew then and there that we’d be here someday. Even when my heart was breaking, I didn’t doubt my vision. I couldn’t.”
An image flashed in my mind—the memory of him on top of Laila in the training room. I tensed.
He raised his head to look down on me. “Carmella?”
“Did you sleep with her?”
He cocked his head. “Who?”
“That day when you walked in on Paimon and me, you stormed off and I followed. I saw you kissing her.”
He leaned his forehead against mine. “Ah, Laila. She kissed me and, yes, I allowed it. I was angry and hurt, but I regretted it immediately. She knows how I feel about you. They all do.”
I placed my hand on his chest, his skin was velvet and taut beneath my fingers. What was the point in being angry when I’d been the one to push him away each time? “It’s my fault. I was confused. I didn’t know what I wanted. When you walked out after seeing me with Paimon, it was like you were taking a piece of me with you. I think I knew then, or at least started to realize.”
“What? What did you know?” His lips hovered above mine. “Tell me.”
My heart pumped a little harder. I’d told him I wanted him, that he was mine, but I hadn’t said the words, not yet.
I licked my lips. “I knew that I loved you.”
He took my mouth in a soft kiss that pulled at my heartstrings and brought tears to my eyes. He pulled back and stared deep into my eyes, drawing me into the maelstrom of emotions swirling in their depths.
“I promise to be worthy of your love.” He blinked and I could almost see him pull back emotionally. “Your phone is in the drawer of the nightstand.” Pressing a kiss to my cheek, he slipped from the bed and padded into the bathroom.
I’d caught a glimpse of the soft kernel of the armored man. The gooey center that he hid from the world, and an emotion I couldn’t quite define swelled inside me and then an icy finger of dread tickled the back of my neck. What if it was taken away from me? What if Malachi won? I couldn’t let that happen. Shuffling across the bed, I reached for the bedside table and my phone.
Melody answered almost immediately. “Carmella. How are you feeling?”
“Good. Real good.”
“I’m glad to hear it. You gave us quite a scare.”
“Well, I’m okay and ready for duty. So, where are we at on the preparations for evacuation?”
“All systems go. You don’t need to worry about that. The newsletter went out a couple of hours ago and we’ll be headed to The Circle soon.”
“I’m coming with. Can you swing by and pick me up?”
“Are you sure you’re up to this? No one’s going to think any less of you if you sit this out. I can handle the supes. I have Honey, Victor and Urvashi as supernatural backup, not to mention the Alpha team. You’re already playing a huge part by being the anchor.”
“I know. But I want to be there. I need to be there.”
“I get it,” she said. “It’s like if you take your eye off the ball, something could go wrong. I get that all the time.”
I sagged against the headboard. “Exactly.”
“Okay, see you in fifteen.”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
He padded toward the bed. “More than enough time for you to come before you go.”
Heat pooled in my belly. I’d let Vritra rock my world. It might be the last time in a while, because I had the feeling that once I got out of this bed and back to work, things were going to get mighty hairy.
7
Victor, Honey and Urvashi were already at The Circle when we arrived. The building was a cavernous space with what had been a bar at one end and a huge caged off arena in the center. So this was where Malina had met Garuda for the first time, and where she’d come to burn off some steam. This place had been used as a fight club until a few years ago, but had shut down after the void had almost taken the city. Guess the creatures that had come here to vent their aggression had seen enough violence during the war against the void to last them a lifetime. And here we were poised at the precipice of another one, except this time we had no idea what form it would take. What was the purge? How would it take the city? What exactly was Malachi planning?
Gah! So many questions and no answers. It made my head ache or maybe that was just a headache. The disused fight club was now a sad derelict space, but perfect for our meeting tonight.
Honey jumped off the platform the trio had erected and bounded over to give me a hug. Urvashi joined us a moment later, and we remained locked in the jasmine scent of the apsara’s perfume.
I pulled back. “It’s so good to see you guys.”
“You look good,” Urvashi said.
“Is the anchor stuff giving you grief?” Honey asked.
My neck heated as the sensory memory of Vritra inside me sent a bolt of desire through me. “Not at the moment.” Should I tell them about my connection to Vritra, that I’d taken him as my mate? No. Now wasn’t the time for girlie gossip. There was too much other stuff to deal with. “Is everything ready?” I looked over Urvashi’s shoulder to Victor who gave me a thumbs up. “Great.”
Unleashing Magick: an Urban Fantasy Novel (The Witch Blood Chronicles Book 4) Page 5
