‘‘Last night you said we couldn’t be together,’’ she ground out, gasping. ‘‘Now?’’
‘‘Now?’’ He released her hands, letting them fall to her side, and began unbuttoning her uniform top. ‘‘I want this now.’’ He growled as her shirt fell open.
‘‘But you told me it’s forbidden.’’
‘‘It is—in the worst possible way.’’
With his fingertips, he slowly stroked both of her nipples, watching as they puckered beneath the silken material of her bra. Thea snapped her head toward the elevator panel. ‘‘Someone will notice—they might send an engineer, thinking we’re stuck.’’
He tracked with her, looking at the panel, then turned back and, in one smooth gesture, covered her mouth with his own. She opened to him, unable to resist, and his rough tongue darted inside her mouth, seeking her out. His breathing became heavier, layered atop a low, keening growl—the sound of a Refarian male at his most aroused. She closed her arms around his neck, threading her hands through his silky black hair, then rubbing them lower down his back, feeling every line of his powerfully muscled shoulders and back. He had the body of a god—sleek, massive, seductive.
She thrust her hips against him, and in turn he wedged his hard thigh firmly between her legs. They began to rock together, he steadying her hips beneath his palms, working the motion of their two bodies; she edgier, perhaps more eager. So eager that she seemed to rush ahead of the motion he created, unable to hold back. She heard a rumble of his laughter, and he stilled her hips—forcing them back against the elevator wall. ‘‘Slow down, baby. Slow.’’
She gasped, sucked in air, tried to still her heart. He stroked a lock of loose hair back from her eyes, slipping it between his fingers like a caress. ‘‘You have such beautiful hair.’’ He sighed. ‘‘So rare and gold—I’d never even seen this color before I got to this planet.’’ He lifted the lock to his lips and, closing his eyes, kissed the ends ever so slowly. Thea felt the dampness between her legs grow hotter.
‘‘I-I’m from the border lands—you probably never went there as a boy.’’
‘‘I never left Thearnsk,’’ he agreed, still stroking her hair, working her ponytail loose until the curling, thick locks fell to shoulder length.
He sucked in a breath. ‘‘I love you with your hair down,’’ he said, his black eyes widening.
She felt her face flush hot and stared at the far wall of the elevator. ‘‘I wear it back because of work.’’
‘‘You shouldn’t.’’ He gathered handfuls of it, kneading it, then leaned in close and began to sniff. Her hair, her neck, her chest—gods help her, her breasts! Heatedly, he growled his pleasure, slipping her bra off of her shoulders until at last his lips made contact with one bare, exposed nipple. Drawing it into his mouth, he cupped the rest of her breast within his rough palm. The feel of his skin against hers, his warm mouth over her cool nipple, caused Thea to arch her back, her own body quaking with hot, wet tremors. She slapped her open palm against the wall, tamping down her overpowering desire to scream Marco’s name at the top of her voice.
Curling heat began to roll from the center of her being, unfurling over her body, touching her toes, the top of her head. My Change! I’m going to Change!
But she couldn’t stop. Marco urged her downward, dropping to his knees, slowly sliding her along the elevator wall until she was on the floor, legs open wide to him. He knelt between her thighs, working them even farther apart. His jeans bulged in front, and kneeling there—right between her legs—she couldn’t believe how large and prominent his shaft obviously was.
‘‘What . . . are . . . we’’—Thea gasped, sucking in a hot breath—‘‘doing? Please . . . someone will come. Someone will know. . . .’’
He hesitated, and she reached with both hands and stroked his thighs. Just barely, she slipped her fingertips over his erection, caressing him. His eyes drifted shut and he growled again, louder than before, so she stroked him again—back and forth beneath the material of his blue jeans. Throwing his head back, he voiced a cry of pleasure, but then shocked her by stilling her hand. For a long moment, their gazes locked and it seemed she felt him inside of her mind. Intimate, within her, whispering. You’re damn beautiful, baby. I could love you . . .
Was it a past memory? She couldn’t be sure, but it made her shiver with an eerie sense of being invaded by another time.
Marco seemed to sense it too, his dark face—flushed by the heat of their tussling—seemed to pale slightly. He dropped back onto the floor from his kneeling position. ‘‘We’ve gotta stop,’’ he announced heavily, burying his face in both hands.
‘‘Someone might come,’’ she agreed flatly. Still, she didn’t want to stop—not for a moment. She made up her mind. ‘‘But I don’t care!’’ she announced, reaching for him, gathering his dark hands within her own much paler ones.
‘‘I’m sorry, Thea. I can’t control myself with you. It’s absurd’’—he dropped his hands away, staring her hard in the eyes—‘‘but I swear to All that I can’t.’’
She smiled, leaning forward until her lips met his. She cupped his face in both of her hands. ‘‘I didn’t say I minded,’’ she teased him, giggling. ‘‘Just that I didn’t want the Refarian army to bust me in the elevator shaft. Your shaft in the shaft, know what I mean?’’
He stroked her face with his fingertips. ‘‘This is all wrong, Thea. I shouldn’t have . . .’’
Her smile turned downward into a frown. ‘‘You’re not still insisting that you’re not allowed—’’
‘‘I’m not allowed, Thea.’’
She wrestled past him, leaping to her feet. ‘‘Your vows are ridiculous! Stupid!’’ she spat angrily, launching toward the control panel and hitting the button. ‘‘And wholly unfair.’’ The elevator lurched, resuming its descent, and still Marco knelt on the floor, gazing up at her. His black hair was disheveled, his dark eyes wide and filled with emotion, and his jutting erection was still prominent in the front of his pants. He looked for all the world as if she’d been about to take his virginity. Only his hard-on proved that she hadn’t.
She knocked her head against the panel. ‘‘Please—don’t do this to me again unless you mean to finish it.’’
Chapter Nine
Sabrina knelt before Jared, her familiar blond head lowered in a subservient pose. She looked no different than she had on that last day he’d seen her so many years ago. It was almost as if time itself were playing a trick on him. Of course he knew she was a shape-shifter and could assume any form that pleased her. He himself could appear eternally youthful if he wanted to, but apparently, unlike Sabrina, he had no desire to appear younger than his natural age—gray hairs and all. Or maybe she’d simply chosen a form that would be most familiar to him, rather than that of a nearly sixty-year-old woman.
Her chest rose and fell with anxious breaths, her sweater visibly vibrating with the obvious thundering of her heart. She was nervous as hell; of course she was. His own stomach roiled with anxiety since he had no idea what he would say to the woman he had always regarded as the true mother of his heart. The one who had sat with him for hours as a boy, coaching and training him to be king, answering his endless, thoughtful questions. The night of his parents’ murder Sabrina had held him close in her arms for hours, just rocking him as he cried. And when the next day dawned, his whole life had utterly changed. His people had crowned him as king when he was only ten years old.
After his coronation, Sabrina had never spoken to him the same way again, becoming much more formal and distant in their relations. He was no longer a prince—overnight he’d become not only a ruler of an entire kingdom, but the official military leader of a widespread warfare campaign. It would have been too much for any young man’s shoulders, but was nearly unbearable for a child. No wonder he had needed Sabrina, had relied on her so completely.
In the months that followed, Sabrina still stayed close to him, but her tutelage morphed and became more
intense. Even now Jared attributed much of his leadership acumen to Sabrina Y’lansk, the very woman who knelt before him now.
Staring down at her, he knew he should be angry; he should feel betrayed that she’d never returned to him that last night in the palace. And he certainly had every right to feel abandoned. But most of all he should be furious that during all his time on Earth, she’d been secretly running the Madjin in circles around him. Why didn’t she come to me? he reflected, staring down at her mutely.
Yes, he should feel betrayed, furious, bitter; the list of appropriate emotions was multifold. But what he wanted—desperately wanted more than anything else—was simply to cry. To fall to his knees and weep like a little boy in the presence of his long-lost mother. His heart ached so hard in his chest, he could hardly breathe. His throat tightened convulsively. What could he possibly say to this woman who had raised him for the first years of his life? It was like she’d come back from the dead, and he was at an utter loss for words in any language.
With a trembling hand, he reached to touch the top of her head, noticing for some reason the contrast between her fair hair and his own very dark skin. They’d always been different, she Madjin and he a born king; their physical differences only underscored their class distinctions. Slowly he settled his palm over the crown of her head, blowing out a weary, emotion-filled sigh.
She shook visibly at his touch. ‘‘My lord, I-I wish . . .’’
She never finished her sentence. For a long moment Jared waited, hoping she would speak her heart. He ached to hear her say more, anything at all. I wish we’d never been parted. I wish you hadn’t been exiled. I wish that I’d protected you from a host of things I couldn’t protect you from. Was that what his near-mother wished? He longed to hear those things from her like a child yearns for their parents’ approval and praise.
‘‘Rise, Sabrina Y’lansk. Rise and speak freely.’’
She nodded, slowly lifting her gaze toward him. Tears shone in her brown eyes, and it was a visible struggle for her to compose herself. ‘‘I tried to come back to you,’’ she whispered in a choked voice. ‘‘That night. I would have moved the heavens to reach you. To have spared you so much pain.’’
Averting his eyes, he pushed past her toward the far side of the room. He stared out the large glass windows, bracing both hands on the window frame over his head. Outside the snow showers continued, swirling white in every direction, blinding the valley below with sheets of hoary precipitation.
Finally, she continued: ‘‘I’ve thought so many times how I might have reached you that night.’’
‘‘But you didn’t,’’ he told her flatly. ‘‘I was left alone, and the Antousians came. . . .’’ He shook his head, unable to finish; the memories were too powerful and engulfing.
He heard a soft sob from behind him, then silence for long moments while he simply stood and stared at the pure whiteness of the world beyond the windowpanes. His own planet was polluted, dirty. Ruined. Sometimes he was thankful to be gone—seeing Sabrina amplified every heartbroken memory he’d brought along with him of his lost home.
‘‘I-I was afraid that if I came to the palace, they would find you,’’ she explained in a strangled voice. ‘‘I never wanted to leave you like that.’’
He whirled toward her, furious. ‘‘And yet you’ve lived here on Earth—knowing I was near—and never came to reveal yourself. You’ve hidden from me, your king. Your lord.’’ Bitterness tinged his every word. ‘‘That is not the behavior of a mother or a protector,’’ he insisted, shaking his head indignantly. ‘‘You were my Madjin, Sabrina. The only one I had in my life who could have stood between me and harm, but you left me to th-those—’’ He broke off, unable to voice his emotions without stammering. For a few seconds he gathered his composure, turning back to face her. ‘‘You left me to those vledjasks like meat thrown to the wolves.’’
She folded both arms over her chest and began to cry. Tears of anguish seeped down both her cheeks, her mouth twisted into an expression of such heart-rending pain that Jared’s own eyes stung. The room all around him, and Sabrina, grew blurry. ‘‘I was only a boy,’’ he continued hoarsely as his own tears began to fall, hot on his face. ‘‘I wasn’t ready for the Antousians. I wasn’t ready to lead, not really. I was a child and you were my mother. You were the only real mother I ever had.’’ His own mother, distant and aristocratic, had never opened her heart to her son.
Sabrina was across the room, opening her arms to him before he could say another word, making a pained sound like the cry of a small bird. ‘‘Jareshk.’’ She tugged at both his shoulders, pulling him down and into her motherly embrace. She began to shush him in their shared language like a little boy, and that only made him cry harder. He was half a foot taller than her now, and pressed his face against her hair, breathing in her scent. Gods, he’d lost everything since the day he’d last seen this woman. His innocence. So much—too much. The war had extracted a higher price than even she might imagine.
But he’d found important parts of himself over the years too, like his soulmate.
‘‘I’ve a wife,’’ he murmured against the top of her head. ‘‘A mate.’’
Sabrina began to laugh, and pulled apart to stare up into his eyes. An expression of such joy lit her tear-filled eyes, he wasn’t sure he had ever seen her so happy when he was a boy. ‘‘Yes, I know,’’ she said, still laughing. ‘‘Kelsey Wells Bennett. We know all about our new queen. And I’m so happy for you, dear Jareshk. So very, very happy that you’ve found love.’’ Then she did something that took him back at least twenty years: She lifted her fingertips to his cheek and slowly stroked his face as if he were still a little boy.
‘‘How do you know about Kelsey?’’ He thought back to last night, how Marco and Riley had seemingly known all about their new queen.
Sabrina’s smile slipped a bit. ‘‘Marco told me you know about Anika.’’
He closed his eyes. He’d yet to delve into that particular perfidy. ‘‘Why didn’t she tell me she was a protector?’’ he demanded, anger and hurt twining hotly together. ‘‘Why did you instruct her to stay silent about her true calling?’’
Sabrina stepped apart from him, once again inclining her head respectfully. ‘‘She asked me—many times—for permission to tell you everything. I thought she could protect you better without your knowing.’’
Jared nodded but he didn’t understand, nor did he forgive Anika for her deception. Hers was the ultimate betrayal. They’d been friends—very close friends—for all their time serving together, and now he knew that she’d never once given up her secrets. The woman was Madjin, mated when he’d believed her single . . . How had he ever thought her one of his dearest, best friends?
‘‘How many of you are there?’’ he asked. ‘‘Anika and Anna here in my camp—anyone else that I should know about?’’
‘‘There are only the five of us. We’re all that remains of the Madjin.’’
‘‘That makes five more Madjin than I’d have said still existed.’’
‘‘It’s not the powerful numbers that once completed our Circle,’’ she observed. ‘‘But it’s a start at rebuilding.’’
He nodded, stepping apart; he needed distance again. Needed time to gather all of his thoughts. And, most of all, he needed Sabrina’s guidance, after so many years. ‘‘Kelsey has the mitres data inside her mind,’’ he told her bluntly. ‘‘I’m sure you already know that from Anika.’’
Sabrina gave a brisk nod, running her hand thoughtfully down the length of her braid. It was a gesture he had observed many times in his childhood.
‘‘We have to retrieve it—and soon.’’ He wouldn’t tell her why the retrieval was so urgent since Marco’s letter was going to stay a secret between Kelsey and him.
‘‘You placed it within her, correct?’’
‘‘I had no other choice at the time,’’ he lamented, still painfully sorry that he’d been forced to rely on Kelsey to safeguard
that kind of powerful intelligence. ‘‘But we have to get it out.’’
‘‘If you placed it within her, then you’re the right person to extricate it from her mind.’’
‘‘I don’t think so.’’ He stared into the roaring fire. ‘‘I’m too clumsy with my gifts. After my crash, I was empowered by my rushing adrenaline, my desperate state . . . otherwise I probably would’ve been unsuccessful in linking up with Kelsey to begin with.’’
‘‘I doubt that, my lord. She is your true soulmate. You’d connected with her years earlier—it was the power of that connection that enabled you to leave the data inside of her.’’
He glanced over his shoulder and couldn’t help smiling. ‘‘You really do know everything, don’t you?’’
‘‘I’ve followed your movements and your life very closely. I’ve watched over you faithfully.’’
He closed his eyes. ‘‘I put her in a lot of danger. It was a reckless thing to do to someone I love.’’
‘‘You didn’t know—’’
‘‘No, a part of me always knew. I’ve loved Kelsey since I was almost sixteen years old—I just spent years unable to remember that fact.’’
‘‘What makes you think you’re too unskilled with intuition to help her? You’re her bondmate. That carries a lot of power.’’
‘‘I’m awkward and untrained—Thea’s the one to do it.’’
‘‘Then why have you waited to ask for her help?’’
Oh, such a pointed, difficult question. ‘‘She’s very angry about my marriage.’’ That was the simple answer, when in fact his feelings on the matter were much more complex—he didn’t want to hurt Thea, but it was more than that too. He felt guilty that he’d never loved his cousin in the way that she’d wanted.
‘‘That doesn’t matter. This is a serious security and military issue.’’ Sabrina gave a brisk, serious nod. ‘‘If you believe Thea’s the one to undertake the effort, then Thea should work with her queen.’’
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