Shadow Rising

by Cassi Carver

  “I see you are back in working order,” Julian said.

  “Flaming witches. That will be the last time somebody pins my wings.” He peered in the window. “The ward is down. Let me make sure it’s safe.”

  Gavin flashed, then returned a minute later. “The apartment is fine, which can only mean they were looking for Kara. You’d be better off saying your goodbyes on the island.”

  “No,” Julian said roughly. “I will ward it again. I only took possession of their ward the last time. Now I will construct one of my own making. It will stand.”

  Gavin’s jaw tensed. “You shouldn’t use your energy. You’ll need it.”

  Julian widened his stance, his Aniliáre machismo a sight to see. “I won’t leave her unprotected.”

  Gavin’s chest rose and fell with a heavy breath. “Suit yourself, you stubborn ass.”

  “How long do you think we have, Gavin?” Kara asked, clinging tightly to Julian’s arm.

  Gavin reached a hand out to steady himself on the railing. “How would I know, princess? But now is not the time for long goodbyes.”

  “An hour? Can you give us that? I can feed Julian and get him strong before you come back.”

  He leveled his gaze at her. “It will take you an hour to give him blood?”

  Julian shifted restlessly, showing incredible restraint in Kara’s opinion.

  “Please, Gavin.” If he could have read her thoughts, she would have said, I love him. One hour is all I have left.

  But maybe he read it in her eyes. He looked from her to Julian. “I’ll inform the clan of the coven performing nex veneficus and of Claudius’s ultimatum, then I’ll return for Julian. Take care of him, princess. Summon me if he begins to weaken.”

  She nodded, but he was gone before she’d twitched her chin. “Come on.” She went to try the handle, hoping she’d left it unlocked, but the doors opened to her before she’d reached them. She paused midstep. “I hope you did that.”

  He pulled her inside, then stood apart and bowed his head in concentration. She felt his energy envelope her, then expand past her body to the walls of her apartment. It grew in intensity, not clear blue like it had been before, but thick and black.

  “Julian, don’t waste yourself on the ward. I’ll be fine.”

  He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, then he raised his chin, eyes closed, and lifted his hands. No earthquakes, no shaking floors, but the atmosphere around her thrummed with life, as if living plasma flowed through her walls. His eyes sprang open, but he tipped to the side for a moment, like he’d lost his balance, then he smiled. “Now let them come.”

  “Shit. Sit down, will you?”

  “Bring me the vial.”

  “Now? Are you sure?” Why was she even asking that? Her time was almost up with Claudius, and if Julian wouldn’t give her the blood, then Abbey might be walking around with her stomach in bandages for the rest of her life.

  Kara padded to the dresser and fished out the vial. She sat on the edge of the bed and handed it to Julian. One claw extended from his fingertip. He nicked his palm and allowed the blood to drip from his hand into the opening of the tiny glass jar. After he’d filled it, Kara plugged it with the stopper.

  “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much this means to me and to Abbey.” She put the vial in her nightstand and went to get him a washcloth. Before she could wipe away the blood, he blew on his hand. The wound closed and the blood evaporated, leaving his skin untouched.

  “Now it’s my turn.” She grabbed her knife again, deciding she preferred its clean cut to her veins over the ragged tear Julian had made earlier.

  He didn’t argue when she pushed him down on the bed and lay down beside him, face to face. She extended her wrist to his lips, then snuggled against him. She couldn’t pin down what she was feeling, exactly. Her chest was tight, her breathing shallow, her eyes strained, like what she imagined it would feel like to be waiting on a stretcher for a heart surgeon to open her up and sever her aorta.

  After a few minutes, he released her and mended her skin. “You’re in pain?”

  She rubbed her wrist and slipped her hands around his ribs. “No. I’m fine. You?”

  He grasped her face and looked into her eyes. “Tell me the truth. I can feel it.”

  She swallowed. “I never had a man love me until you. Oh, hell…I’m not saying you do… I’m saying the old you. Julian loved me. I didn’t accept it at the time. And I never knew what losing him would do to me.”

  He released her and smoothed her hair away from her cheek. “I shouldn’t have come back.”

  “Of course you should have.”

  “No. I’ve caused you more pain. And for what? I have no recollection of the man you lost.” He turned his head on the pillow and stared out the window. The sky was growing darker. “I saw in Gavin’s eyes his love for Julian. I’m not him. But I wish I were.”

  Kara’s throat felt thick, as if a lump were lodged there. Did it matter if he never remembered who he was? Could she love him like this? Or maybe she should be asking herself if she could figure out a way not to love him, because her heart didn’t seem to care about the gaps in his memory. “It’s going to be okay. You’ll see.”

  “If I don’t make it to the Shadowland, I only hope to keep my memories of my time here. That would be enough.”

  “Stop. Don’t talk like that.”

  He took her by the shoulder. “You’re a strong woman, Kara. You will be all right until I see you again. And if I don’t…see you again, you will go on. I expect that from you.”

  Her heart was going to break wide open. She considered for a moment calling Gavin just so she could end the torment. But then she rose on her knees above Julian, straddling his hips.

  She smiled, but she stared down at him through glossy eyes. “The day we met, you dropped a box of stuff in the hall, and I helped you pick it up. That was the luckiest day of my life. I will never forget you. But if something happens, I will go on. I promise you.” She leaned down and kissed him.

  If he didn’t remember her, then why were his own eyes glistening when he sat up with Kara’s legs wrapped around him and slowly pressed his lips to hers?

  She shifted in his lap and cupped her hands behind his nape. The soft, wet feel of his tongue over hers was almost too much to bear. She sighed into his mouth and shifted her hips, so wrapped up in his kisses, she’d barely registered his hardening shaft beneath her.

  She lifted up, not wanting to tempt him. “We can’t chance it. The last time we had sex, you evaporated into thin air when we were finished. And if that happens again…” She shivered.

  He brought his face to hers and kissed her so tenderly, she felt his emotion in every stroke of his tongue, then he pulled back an inch. “If what Gavin says is true, if I can create a world for myself in the Shadowland, it will be just like this.” He smiled. “This bed. These pillowcases with your scent on the fabric. That balcony, so I can watch for your arrival.”

  “I will find a way. If you don’t make it back here, I’ll come to you.”

  He flipped her over on her back and kissed her again. “I will wait for you through all eternity if I have to.”

  She stared up at him as he pinned her against the bed. She was completely at the mercy of this black-wing. And there was nowhere else in heaven or on earth she would rather be.

  When he removed her flannel shirt, then took the hem of her sweater in his hand and began slowly working it up over her abdomen and breasts, she let him. Half of her brain cried out in protest, but the other half assured it that if he began to look weak at all, she would call it off. She lifted up so he could pull the sweater over her head, then he reached around and unfastened her bra.

  Once she was lying there under his scrutiny with nothing covering her top half, he murmured, “You have the most beautiful breasts I’ve ever seen.”

  Kara smiled. “They’re probably the only breasts you’ve ever seen.”

  He grinned and wrap
ped his hands firmly around each one. “I have no need for other breasts. I find yours—” he drew hard on one nipple, then released it with the sound of suction, “—wholly satisfying.”

  She squirmed under his weight. She was trying to do what was right for Julian, what was safe, but he wasn’t making it easy on her. Her Demiáre blood made it hard to refuse her bondmate.

  She squeezed her buttocks, lifting off the bed to rub her swollen mound against him. “If I could make my own reality, you would be there, making love to me. I would never let you go.”

  With him already naked, the feel of his large shaft stroking through her jeans was too much. She grasped the tight spheres of his ass and raked her nails along his skin. He held himself above her, the veins in his thick arms standing out against his skin.

  Kara pushed up and ran her tongue over his flat nipples. His skin was perfect, tan and smooth, stretched tight over sculpted pecs. She made the mistake of glancing lower, and her pussy clenched. The hard ripple of his abs spoke of the power he could deliver with every thrust.

  She visualized him inside her, his ass and abs contracting as he drove into her, then his hips pulling him back so he could do it again. “We can’t do this. We can’t take the risk.”

  He levitated her off the bed and unbuttoned her pants. “We are doing this.”

  On his knees on the bed, he pulled her jeans from her legs. She was suspended before him as if she were lying on a cloud. She leaned back, her neck arching, as he parted her legs. It was the strangest feeling, like she could defy gravity and float around the room. But with his face inches from her throbbing core, she wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

  She watched his black hair bobbing between her legs as he buried his tongue in her slit. She’d never experienced it before, but it felt as if he was threading a tiny current of pure, raw energy into her from where their skin touched. She moaned, louder than she wanted to, and dragged her nails along his scalp. “Oh, shit. You have to stop. I’m gonna come.”

  His lips glistening with Kara’s juices, he pulled back and smiled. “Come, then.” And then he growled against her pussy, moving his tongue against her clit in quick flicks of ecstasy.

  His tongue, the vibrations of his growl, the current he was feeding into her… She clamped her thighs around his head and cried out as her fluids rushed through her channel. Her body spasmed, her muscles tightening with the overwhelming power of her orgasm, and then she went boneless in its aftermath. He slowly lowered her into his awaiting arms.

  Breathless and slightly embarrassed at her lack of control, she opened her eyes. “That was too fast.”

  His brows rose and he smiled. “Are you complaining about my method?”

  She leaned up and kissed him. “You’ve never disappointed me. Well…maybe once.”

  “Truly?” His manly pride seemed to be teetering on the edge.

  Kara chuckled. “On my first visit to the island, Julian and I—I mean you and I—were trying something in the clouds that I’d never done before. Some guards interrupted us before we could finish. You don’t know how many times I’ve fantasized about that since.”

  “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  Her cheeks warmed. It was easy for her to tell him what she wanted in the heat of the moment, but when he was holding her tenderly like this, she felt so vulnerable. “Your mouth was on me, and mine was on you.”

  She remembered the day, the taste of him on her lips, the feel of water vapor on her skin.

  She felt the stretch of a smile on his lips when he kissed her. “I’m sorry it didn’t happen, but maybe it was meant to be my memory, and not his.” With her still naked in his arms, Julian’s wings extended and he flew out the balcony doors.

  “Julian,” she squeaked. “What are you doing? My neighbors might see us!”

  “No one can see us, but if you would like proof, I can take you down to street level…”

  When he dipped toward the busy streets, Kara clung tighter. “No. That’s okay. I believe you. Up is good.”

  He laughed and shot into the sky. “Of all the nights to have a clear sky. Are you sure clouds must be part of this fantasy?”

  The October night air was a little too cool on her feverish skin. He took her up so high, she could see the entire city below them, from the graceful arc of the Coronado Bridge to the jets landing and taking off from Lindberg Field. To the south, the lights of Mexico lit up the mountains. Being in his arms above such a beautiful landscape took her breath away.

  “This works for me.” She pressed her lips to his and thrust her tongue in his mouth.

  He growled and rolled underneath her. “You have no idea how much I want that tongue on me.”

  She carefully turned on his stomach until her ass was in his face and her lips hovered over his cock. “No, I have an idea.” She swiped her tongue across the pearl of fluid on his crown.

  He hissed in a breath. “Oh, hellfire. Do that again.”

  She smiled, taking his large shaft in both hands as she fit the first two inches of him into her mouth. She sucked hard and massaged her hands up and down his length.

  With a groan, he kneaded the globes of her ass and ran his tongue over her rump. She squirmed against him, never having his tongue explore other parts of her before. She licked him clean, and then, despite his girth, she went down on him another inch until he filled every corner of her mouth and throat.

  She felt the rumble in his chest when he sank two fingers into her sheath and lapped at her tightly knit bundles of nerves with his tongue. Her hands might have paused in their brisk strokes when he circled her hot mound, she wasn’t sure, but the next thing she knew, he was thrusting up into her mouth, urging her on.

  She reveled in the feel of his silky skin in her hands as her mouth feasted on his essence. She needed more—couldn’t get enough. But instead of letting her simply enjoy him, he was driving her insane as he thrust his long fingers inside her and rhythmically stroked her clit.

  She wasn’t going to come before he did this time. It wasn’t going to happen. She squeezed tighter with her fists and sucked harder, increasing her speed on his shaft until he was panting against her.

  He pulled away. “I want to be inside you. Please.”

  What could she say to that? “Hell, yes.”

  She spread her legs wider and clawed at his skin when he shifted on top of her and plunged inside her already slick channel. With his hands on her ass, he pulled her tight to his groin every time he thrust. He was so thick and long, it might hurt if her body hadn’t been made for this.

  “This is my fantasy,” he said as he kissed her roughly. “Tasting us both when our lips meet, watching your eyes close in ecstasy while I ride you. I’m going to come so deep inside you, you won’t ever be rid of me.”

  She couldn’t talk. Her skin was hot and damp. He filled her so completely, she could feel every vein in his cock as he plunged into her. Her pussy held him tight, devouring him as her hips rose up to meet his thrusts. She strained toward him, her clit getting pounded over and over until at last, she screamed. Under his passionate onslaught, there was no holding back. No waiting.

  Julian captured her mouth as she cried out, breathing in her moans of ecstasy, and then he was driving harder and faster, until she could do nothing but submit to his body as he possessed her.

  His lips parted in a feral growl as he released his essence into her. She clung tight to him, riding the wave of rapture as her pussy milked his shaft. Her neck lolled back, unable to support the weight of her head as she focused everything she was on the bliss of being taken by him. He lifted a hand under her neck, allowing her to go boneless in his arms.

  Her channel was clamping around him as he expanded inside her. When he started to pull away, she gouged her nails into his ass and growled. “I’m keeping you this time.”

  He answered by kissing her mouth and tilting his hips, pushing deeper inside her. “As you wish.”

  When they dropped a foot, Kara’s h
eart dropped, too.

  “Not again.” She pushed her wrist against his lips, and he latched on without protest. “Let’s go home.”

  Still connected, groin to groin and mouth to wrist, Julian swept through the skies and laid Kara down in her bed. She saw the strain of concentration on his face as he took her blood, as if he was willing himself more time in her arms.

  His muscles relaxed a bit, then he fanned his breath over her skin, healing her wrist. She kissed his cheek and sighed. Nothing on this planet could compare to the feeling of coupling with the man she loved. She swallowed, amazed by the current thrumming through her body. It was like a slow, steady orgasm that went on and on.

  “Was it like this between you and Julian?” he asked.

  She smiled and smoothed her hand over his back. “Always.”

  “How can I be jealous of him?”

  Kara looked into his eyes, trying to judge if he was serious. “You’re jealous…of yourself?”

  “He had more time with you. More memories. This new body I have doesn’t seem compatible with your world.”

  She ran her hand from his back to his nape and pulled him in for a kiss. “To have you inside me like this…I’ve never felt so compatible.”

  He rolled her on top of him, her head resting against his shoulder and her legs draped to either side of him. They didn’t talk for a while but simply held each other while Julian stayed locked inside her. And then, even after her body released him, they didn’t move.

  As the minutes counted down to Gavin’s arrival—and Julian’s subsequent departure—Kara felt as if she was going to break down and weep. The only thing that kept her strong was her promise to Julian that she could go on without him if she needed to. She didn’t want him to worry about her tonight. She wanted him to focus on making his way to his true home, where he could be whole again.

  “I don’t have much longer,” he said, his voice a wisp of breath.

  “Oh, hell.” She clutched him tight and grabbed the sun charm at her throat. “Gavin!”

  “Shhh…” Julian whispered into her hair. “Calm down, love. It’s going to be all right.”