Bound By Fate: A Novel of the Strong

by Amy Knickerbocker

  There was simply no getting out of prophecy.

  His marriage to Sarai would be announced tomorrow, his nuptials––and his duty––soon to follow.

  After tonight, he knew there would be no more tomorrows for him.

  Not with Liv.

  And, with that, the fight had left him.

  “Turn around, Toran.” Her soft voice beckoned from behind.

  Eyes squeezed shut, he gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

  “Turn around and look at me,” Liv commanded again.

  Turning stiffly, Toran was startled to find she was just inches away, her approach drowned out by the weight of his despair.

  “What do I need to know, Toran?”

  “What?” he whispered from what felt like miles away.

  “Earlier, you said that there’s one thing I need to know,” she answered. “What is it that you think you need to tell me?” She reached out and touched his arm. “Because I know why I’m here, Toran. I know.”

  As he plumbed the depths of her trusting eyes, he could see that Liv thought she had him all figured out.

  She had no fucking clue.

  But when Toran opened his mouth to finally confess he’d soon be breaking her heart, he found himself confessing other sins instead.

  Unable to hide from her any longer, he bowed his head, words spilling unfiltered from his mouth.

  “When we were together that night, I wanted you. You know how badly I wanted you… how badly I want you,” he amended, lifting his head so that she could see the truth laid bare in his eyes. “When I got close…” He paused. He shook his head, his eyes sliding shut at the memory of her heat. “Gods, you felt so good,” he breathed. Toran opened his eyes, but unable to hold her heated gaze, he turned his head to study the wall. “When I got close… I panicked.” He blinked. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “How could you ever hurt me?”

  Gods, how to answer that?

  Touching his arm again, she tried to throw him a lifeline.

  Reluctantly, Toran pulled away from the comfort that she offered and went to sit alone at the edge of the bed.

  He didn’t deserve her comfort.

  He didn’t deserve anything she had to give him.

  Instead, Toran closed himself off as best he could… then lost himself in the misery of his past.

  *****

  Nothing had prepared Toran for the day the last calming ease disappeared from Venn Dom––the day the last of the pure-blooded faine was put to death. A simmering sense of unease had descended upon the land, one that remained until this day, a palpable tension boiling just below the surface.

  As clear as if it had happened just minutes ago, Toran remembered the feeling of something breaking inside him.

  “At first, I didn’t think much of it,” he whispered. “I was young. I thought that I could live through anything.”

  It had taken several weeks for his weakness to manifest. Toran, along with the rest of the Vimora, had been too bewildered at first by their new faineless existence to live any semblance of a normal life.

  “I had no idea.” He shook his head, trying to beat back that feeling of total disbelief that consumed him whenever he allowed himself to remember.

  “Beatriu. Her name was Beatriu.” He looked down at his hands, his mind drifting back to the strikingly beautiful daemon girl. Unlike most Vimora females, she had been diminutive and fair.

  She had looked a lot like Liv.

  Blinking back that awareness, he continued, “She was my first lover. We met just before the Great Cleansing began.” As clueless adolescents, they had explored the heady new world of touching and tastes, the sensation of flesh coming together.

  Toran had liked her. Caught up in the throes of youthful rebellion, he had even fancied himself in love.

  Though intensely curious about being with others, he had also remained true to her. At the time, Toran had figured that over his long, near-immortal life, he would have ample time to explore the pleasures of others. Unlike his cousin Merus, it had not been in his nature to sleep around. Even then, he craved companionship.

  Companionship that grew from fidelity and trust.

  Like what I could have with the female before me.

  He closed his eyes and hung his head.

  “After everything ended,” he managed to continue, “well, my life pretty much spiraled out of control. All of ours did.”

  He slid his gaze her way, trying to gauge her emotions. She had quietly moved to sit beside him on the bed.

  In the dimness of the room, she watched him with calm, knowing eyes.

  Looking down, he saw that she had taken his hand, quietly urging him on.

  “Once things settled down, I went back to her. Everything was fine at first.” Toran hesitated, a heated blush crawling up his cheeks. “But at the end, when I…” He swallowed hard, completely lost in the nightmare. “When I finished, I lost control,” he said in a hollow voice. “My venna boiled her blood as she lay beneath me.”

  My cock still buried inside her.

  A heavy silence filled the room. Toran braced for Liv’s anger, her disgust. Instead, he felt her fingertips feathering ever so lightly up and down his forearm, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He closed his eyes and savored her touch.

  He feared she would not be so free with her kindness once she heard the rest.

  He hardened his voice.

  “The second time I killed,” he continued, “I killed because I needed to fuck.”

  Her fingertips froze mid-motion.

  “I wanted sex,” he said, “so I went out and got it. I didn’t give a shit about the consequences.”

  Toran pulled away and collapsed back against the pillows. He rubbed the heels of his hands hard into his aching eyes.

  “What happened, Tor?”

  Swiping his hands up his forehead to fist his hair, he shook his head and somehow summoned the strength to continue.

  Nearly two centuries passed before Toran had found the courage to try again. The thought he’d never be able to come again inside a female had made him near sick with hunger. Desperate and depressed––and done with finding miserably empty relief in the roughness of his fist––Toran managed to convince himself that Beatriu was at fault for her death, not him.

  In his mind, she became a damaged female, one too weak to take his strength.

  After all, he was the strongest of the Strong.

  One night, stumbling drunk and out of his mind with need, Toran had sought out a whore.

  “I was cocky,” he confessed into the darkened room.

  And a fool.

  In his drunken haze, Toran had thought himself older and wiser, then well into his two hundredth year. As he had aged, he had grown immense in presence and in build, standing well over six and a half feet tall and nearing two hundred and fifty pounds. Already an accomplished warrior and tactician, he daily practiced pinpoint control, conducting exhaustive physical war games, thinking himself long past mastering the defiant venna that flowed in and around his veins. Despite his curse––and Kellen’s regular urge to feed it––Toran had proven both his strength and his wits, time and time again, in contentious council meetings, foreign courts, and across bloody battlefields.

  “I thought it was well beyond time to prove myself in the bedroom,” he continued, his words tinged with guilty bitterness.

  Toran had gone with Merus and a couple of other soldiers to a whorehouse on a witches’ ‘el. He vividly remembered walking down the dark cobblestone alley, an alley that reeked of stale ale, pungent urine, and daemon seed.

  The female he had chosen had been dark haired and doe-eyed, but more importantly, she had been hearty and hale. She was chosen only after Toran had strategized her pros and cons with his mates in detail. He had wanted to know who had had her… and how she had held up in bed.

  For him, it hadn’t been about skill or her ability to get him off.

  No, Toran had needed t
o know whether she could withstand his venna––and his ungodsly hunger.

  After so many years without, he had craved having her rough. Even now, sweat beaded his brow as images of taking his female hard––taking his Liv hard––invaded his thoughts.

  Hiding his eyes in the crook of his arm, Toran shifted his hips and bit back a groan.

  Good gods, I’m a bastard.

  To think of such things while remembering that female’s shrieks of pain.

  The acrid stench of her burning flesh.

  The sound of her death rattle…

  The bed linens rustled softly as Liv crawled into bed.

  Though she didn’t touch him, she settled in close.

  He tensed to resist rolling in her direction, grimacing as his venna strained to lick her skin.

  “You didn’t mean to kill her, Toran,” Liv whispered. “You didn’t mean to kill either of them.”

  “It doesn’t change the fact that I did,” he whispered back. “It doesn’t change the fact that I am…”

  Weak.

  His unspoken word hung thick in the air between them.

  “Is this why you hate yourself?”

  He almost laughed.

  Talk about a loaded fucking question.

  He jumped when he felt her thumb press into the bend of his elbow, pulling his arm away from his eyes. She cupped his cheek. Gently turning his face to hers, she asked, “How long ago?”

  He blew out a breath.

  “A very long time.”

  “And you haven’t… made love again… until me?”

  This time, he did laugh, but without a hint of humor.

  “What we did wasn’t making love, Liv.” Toran sat up and scrubbed his bearded cheeks. When he stopped, he lowered his hands and said, “That’s not possible… not with me.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  “I don’t believe that’s true, Toran,” Liv whispered into the darkness. Drawing her body up, she pressed her breasts against him, her cheek against his shoulder.

  His sadness––and his shame––were palpable.

  Toran thought himself weak, but to Liv, he was anything but.

  An abnormality he had never asked for, a genetic lost roll of the dice, had made him what he was.

  Then, the actions of his parents––and an entire people––had damned him.

  How would he have known what would happen?

  Even that second time.

  She shivered at his nightmare.

  Not wanting to harm another, Toran had lasted for centuries, lost in his loneliness, and still he battled to shield her from the danger he believed he posed––no matter how strong his need for her.

  She kissed his shoulder.

  Toran tensed for just a second before he relaxed into her body.

  It was almost as if he was helpless not to do so.

  Twisting to her knees, Liv kneeled at his side and gently scored her fingers through the venna that shimmered down his back.

  He jumped at her touch.

  “What are you doing?” He turned his head slightly to watch her with breathless suspicion.

  “I’m going to make love with you,” she leaned in to whisper in answer.

  A wild, animal groan broke free from deep within his belly, his black eyes flashing, a bright pop of blue lighting the room.

  The very foundation of the castle began to groan under the weight of his need.

  He made no move to leave.

  Hand steady and possessive on his shoulder, Liv walked back on her knees to give him room before guiding him gently down against the pillows. Toran settled back in bed, his arms bent and helpless beside his head, his long, lean body stretched before her.

  Taking a deep breath, she placed her fingers at his waistband and worked his pants slowly down his hips. Toran's chin whipped up, his back arching.

  He hissed as his cock sprang free.

  At the sight, her lips parted. Her heart and breath leapt in time to lodge in her throat. Lost in her excitement, in her desire for him, she let out a low, wanton moan.

  Toran slowly rolled his head forward, his eyes full of eager, yet wary expectation.

  Tucking herself at his side, Liv propped up on an elbow so that she could see his eyes. Running the tips of her fingers slowly down the ripples of his abs, she placed a hand at his hip.

  Tiny frissons of venna hummed against her palm.

  Liv could feel Toran's indecisiveness and trepidation, his fear warring with his intense physical need.

  His undeniable desire for her.

  “Please, Toran,” she whispered. “Please let me touch you.”

  In answer, he blew out an agonized breath.

  Bending forward, she moved her lips back and forth against the bottom of his rib cage, her mouth so close to taking him between her lips.

  “Let me taste you,” she murmured.

  Toran groaned, his venna sizzling in earnest. It was as if he battled an army of thousands teeming to escape from within.

  She breathed in the ecstasy.

  He was so strong, so brave… so ready.

  Leaning on the strength of his courage, she cupped him gently, carefully gauging the emotions in his eyes. His whole body went rigid, and his breath quickened… but he made no move to stop her.

  Unpracticed at what to do, but desperate to give him pleasure, Liv wrapped her fingers around him. At her touch, a guttural moan escaped his throat. Giving him a tentative squeeze, she lifted her head, a question in her eyes.

  Toran nodded a single terse nod before collapsing back against the pillows, his powerful body quivering at her touch. With a tortured groan, he thrust his hips up, pressing hard against her hand.

  “Do it,” he said, his jaw clenched tight, the white of his teeth glinting in the moonlight.

  Not wasting any time, Liv took him into her mouth.

  *****

  “Fuck!” Toran bit out on a shout.

  His vision sparkled a dazzling white as, just for a moment, he froze under the force of a pleasure so intense, it teetered on the brink of agony.

  Then, as if blasted from a cannon, he jackknifed up, the muscles in his abdomen pulling as tight as dried out leather.

  Mere seconds in, it took every ounce of his strength not to come, not to lose control.

  Gods help me, please.

  He fell back flat against the mattress.

  Just days from the battlefield, the venna of the dead dueled with his own, each unruly strain fighting to make its deadly presence known, daring his control to slip. With this new venna inside him––fifteen Vimora strong––Toran knew he was more deadly than ever. Even more, through his haze of pleasure, he sensed that something was different.

  Wrong.

  Having never taken so much venna at a single point in time, Toran strained against the unfamiliar furor now raging within him. It felt as if a darkness lurked inside, an enemy hidden away in the shadows, waiting to strike.

  It wasn’t safe for Liv.

  It wasn’t safe for anybody.

  But his faine was stronger than the venna.

  She called to him.

  Crying out at the loss of her mouth, he struggled to focus. “It’s alright, my love,” he thought he heard her say. “Let me give this to you. Let me take what you need to give me.”

  Clenching his teeth, Toran lashed his venna down tighter. When he finally wrestled together some semblance of control, he lifted his head… and lost himself in the pleasure of watching his faine take him back inside her mouth.

  It was beautiful.

  Liv’s golden brown hair fell in waves around them, its silky softness caressing his thighs. Her alabaster skin was bright against the dark thatch of hair at his groin.

  With the tip of her tongue, she explored the cap of his cock, licking and flicking the achingly sensitive ridges, before pressing the meat of her tongue flat against the vein. He could feel his heartbeat throbbing against the wet flesh of her mouth.

  Fisting her hair, he
clenched his muscles tight and pressed in deeper.

  She moaned against him.

  He grunted in answer.

  Her mouth scalding him, Toran bucked again. Her teeth grazed his tender skin, pushing him closer to his limit.

  The scent of ozone filled the air.

  Close, so close.

  Anxiety, pleasure, pain.

  Want.

  Gripping her head, Toran somehow pulled away from the wicked heat of her mouth.

  “Stop, stop, stop,” he hissed, his balls aching with the need to come.

  He couldn’t find his breath.

  “Shh,” she soothed. Holding him tight in her hand, she rubbed her cheek against him. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

  “It’s not that,” he managed to grind out.

  “Then what is it?” Liv whispered. When she lifted her head, he could see the desire and trepidation warring in her eyes.

  He pulled her up his body to lay pressed against him, their runaway hearts beating in time.

  Toran licked her swollen lips, groaning at her taste.

  “If I’m going to come,” he whispered into her mouth, “Gods help me, I’m going to come inside you.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  If Toran would have just answered his damn phone days ago, Anara wouldn’t be in the position she now found herself in––rushing once again to the castle to beg and plead for entry, her stomach tied up tight in knots.

  She was his doctor for gods’ sake. He was injured. And, while she may have been helpless to treat his condition, there was no doubting he desperately needed to hear what she had to tell him. Yet, each time she’d come to see him, she’d been turned away.

  Lifting her face to the ominous sky above, she feared she was too late. In the past hour or so, the venna storm that raged in the skies over Venn Dom had taken on a distinctly different air.

  It was clear that Toran was awake… and he was alone with his faine.

  Which meant that this night had all the markings of a complete and utter disaster.

  She owed it to her future king––and friend––to try one last time to get a message to him, to help save him, to help save Liv from heartache.

  Where the hell is Merus? she fretted as she hurried along the castle wall. He had made himself scarce since pulsing Toran home from the battlefield. If anyone could––and would––help her, it would be him.