by Olivia March
Chapter 8
Annabelle felt quite subdued for the rest of the afternoon. She’d tried to assert herself with Nefarion, and wow had that not worked out the way she’d intended. He’d told her they couldn’t have sex, then had made her come on her bed so hard she’d passed out for hours. And today she’d affirmed the boundaries he’d set, and somehow had ended up with his mouth on her. She’d never felt anything so thrilling in her entire life as when those shadows had pulled her, opened and exposed her for Nefarion. She’d been completely under his control and had loved every minute of it.
But his attitude was seriously giving her whiplash. The words that came from his mouth seemed totally at odds with his behavior. It was almost like he couldn’t help himself, but Annabelle couldn’t imagine that being true. She was not the type of woman that men chased after. No, she wasn’t ugly, but she also wasn’t a stunner. Annabelle liked to think of herself as an average-looking girl geek. For example, she loved science and quality makeup, but given a choice between spending an hour getting ready and taking that extra hour to look through her telescope, she’d choose the telescope every time.
It did not make sense that someone like Nefarion would behave this way. She wasn’t slender, or polished, or drop-dead gorgeous. Nefarion, on the other hand, was so sexy it almost hurt to look at him. Hell, she hadn’t even seen most of him, and she still got wet whenever she looked in his direction. That silky black hair, his electric scent, and all those enticingly concealed muscles all conspired to create one hot man. Even his weird eyes contributed. Last night she knew they’d been a color so dark they looked black. But in the light of day they appeared almost entirely white, only the tiniest black pupil remained visible. That had startled her good, and should have been creepy, but it wasn’t. His hot factor hadn’t lessened one bit. If she ever saw him without his armor on she’d probably spontaneously combust.
That didn’t seem likely though. As soon as Nefarion had made her come he’d dressed her and immediately set off to find his missing soldier. She was cradled in his arms, but the wind was so forceful during his lightstepping that she kept her eyes closed and just let him do his thing. She didn’t know what to say to him anyway. Thanks for the orgasms? Ask if she should she expect a repeat performance? Did she even want a repeat performance? Sure, those last two occasions had been amazing, but his reasons for not wanting to go all the way loomed in her mind. He made it sound so dangerous to have sex with him. She didn’t want dangerous…did she?
Maybe she did. Even when she’d thought her ideal man was a fellow science geek who was as socially awkward as she was, she still hadn’t been able to find a boyfriend. She’d been surrounded by these sorts every day at work in her old life, and not even one had appealed to her. That had to mean something, right? That in her mind the smart, logical choice wasn’t the type that really turned her crank sexually. Despite all her degrees and seeming intelligence, maybe she was one of those women who wanted the bad boy instead of the smart choice. And Nefarion was the worst of the bad boys. Hell, he wasn’t even human. Annabelle really had no idea what he was capable of, in or out of the sack.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true anymore. Annabelle was getting a glimmering of an idea of what he’d be like in the sack. Forceful, demanding, and extremely skilled for starters. And what he’d done with his shadows…they hadn’t hurt her, but their grip had been unbreakable. She’d seen those shadows literally take lives and hadn’t for a moment imagined they could be used as a sexual tool. An incredibly effective sexual tool. She could still feel those shadows like phantom fingers stroking her breasts and plucking her nipples. And when they’d lifted and separated her thighs to make room for Nefarion, she’d felt a rush of heat scald her entire body. What had followed with his mouth would probably haunt her dreams until the day she died.
Annabelle was pulled from her preoccupation with Nefarion by the chill. They’d been traveling at such a high speed that she’d felt a little cold since they’d started lightstepping. But now it was downright frigid. Annabelle’s fingers and toes began to feel numb, and her nose felt frozen. They must be traveling further north, which is not where Annabelle wanted to be with winter on its way. She didn’t have a heavy coat, just the light jacket she was wearing. There were a few shirts in her bag she could layer under it, but she refused to ask Nefarion to stop just to let her add clothes for warmth. He already thought she was weak, Annabelle didn’t want to add to that impression.
After another half an hour though, Annabelle figured she couldn’t avoid Nefarion getting more of a bad impression of her. Her skin was like ice and her bones literally ached from the cold. She needed a break, with enough time to throw more clothes on top of what she was wearing. She opened her mouth to tell Nefarion, but before she could he stopped of his own accord. Relieved, Annabelle shifted in his arms, and opened her mouth to ask him to put her down. The words didn’t have a chance to leave her lips though. As soon as she tried to speak, a shadow wrapped firmly around her mouth again. Annoyed, Annabelle glared up at Nefarion, only to see his attention was not directed at her.
Annabelle followed his gaze but saw only more forest like the one they’d just come from. It was getting dark outside, so it did look rather forbidding. Annabelle was not an outdoorsy person and had never been camping. Indeed, she never wanted to go camping. Sure, the view of the stars was great out in the sticks, but she could see them even better with a high-powered telescope or at an observatory. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary though, nothing that would justify the razor-sharp concentration Nefarion was directing into those trees. She kicked her feet to remind him that she was in his arms and wanted to be put down. But he didn’t even spare her a glance.
“Scourge.” The word came out in a barely audible hiss, but Annabelle heard him, and her blood froze. Nefarion sensed Scourge in those woods? Just their name threw Annabelle back to the dark time when the invasion first happened. She’d tried to hide out in her apartment, but the Scourge had ferociously flushed out everyone in her building, her block, her city. There had been chaos, people running, screaming, bleeding and dying. As Annabelle had run, Scourge had been close enough for her to see the disgusting gray skin oozing with sores and foulness.
In the end, she’d avoided the same fate as so many others just because she’d been able to run a little faster than a bunch of other people. And she’d gotten lucky finding the basement of the collapsed house. And the guilt still rode her this day that she hadn’t tried to help more people come to that basement and hide with her. The Scourge hadn’t cared who they were killing. They were young and old, men and women, adults and children. Annabelle had heard the pleas and screams of all kinds that day, each one more soul-shattering than the last.
She wanted the Scourge to pay. Oh, how she wanted them to pay! They should be the ones screaming and dying as they were mercilessly slaughtered. They were a savage, brutal race with no mercy and no morals. Annabelle had been over the moon when she’d learned about the Keepers and their mission to destroy Scourge. Even if they wanted some ridiculous payment from humans in the end for their interference, Annabelle knew it would be worth it to see every Scourge scum dead and buried. And unlike humanity, the Keepers had what it took to see that mission through to the end.
Right now, however…there was only one Keeper nearby, and that was Nefarion. No matter how skilled he was at killing, who knew how many Scourge were in those woods? There could be a lot more than Nefarion could handle all by himself, and his Keeper camp was a long way away from here. They needed to keep moving, retreat or go around the Scourge. Annabelle would be nothing but a liability in a battle, and Nefarion surely had his own limits. She wanted to tell him this, but her mouth was still on lockdown. She tapped him on the chest with one hand, and when he looked down at her she pointed her thumb away from the direction he was looking, trying to show him that they needed to move away from those bastards.
Much to her dismay, Nefarion shook his head sharply in denial. And that
wasn’t even the worst of it. There was a fell light in his eyes, black again with the fading sun. That look in his eye was hatred, pure and simple. Nefarion clearly felt how she felt and wanted the Scourge dead as much as she did. But she didn’t want to end up dead if he took on more than he could handle and ended up getting torn to pieces. Nefarion was her only defense against those creatures, their lives were tied together by his insistence on dragging her with him around the country. The least he could do was be cautious and keep her alive.
Annabelle glared at him and pointed at the shadow gagging her mouth. She could see he was reluctant to remove it, but he did. As soon as it was gone Annabelle half lifted herself and half pulled him toward her until her mouth was next to Nefarion’s ear.
“We need to leave here Nefarion. I don’t know how to fight, and you don’t know how many Scourge are out there. Let’s just be safe and go around them, and live to fight another day.” Annabelle hissed these words softly in Nefarion’s ear, refusing to be put off when his body tensed. He might not like what she was saying, but she was determined to get her point across. “I don’t want to die here today, Keeper. You have a mission, let’s just stick to the mission, find your friend, and get back to safety.”
Annabelle felt more than heard the rumble in Nefarion’s chest then. It was an ominous sound, like the warning a dog gives before he savagely mauls someone. Maybe she’d offended him by suggesting retreat. But it was the smart option damnit! She didn’t want to die in this forest, she wanted to live to see the Scourge eradicated. She wanted to help humanity rebuild and atone for her cowardice in running and saving her own life instead of trying to help those around her. And, not to be overly optimistic, but she also did still want to die of old age, her virginity a thing of the past, hopefully with a husband and a couple children who’d made her life rich and fulfilled.
Nefarion, it seemed, didn’t agree. Annabelle barely had time to squeak with shock before she found herself up a tree. Literally up a tree. Nefarion had used his shadows to dump her on a broad limb before they returned to coil around his body like an agitated snake. As Annabelle watched dozens more tendrils escaped from his body, writhing and pulsing. She couldn’t see his face, but she could see the tense set of his shoulders, and the shadows were multiplying and expanding. And still Nefarion just waited, imitating a statue with his perfect stillness.
Annabelle figured he’d forgotten she even existed at that point, but then his head half turned toward her. One hand lifted, and he brought a finger to his lips in the classic “be quiet” gesture. And then she heard it, the sound every human on earth had come to know and fear months ago. Hissing. Like a hoard of vicious snakes, the sound of hissing always preceded the Scourge. Stealth was not something they aspired to, preferring their victims to hear them coming and have time to feel fear. Of course, this only worked on species that were weaker than them, like the people of Earth. For races like the Keepers, the hissing tending to just broadcast the location of the enemy.
Nefarion clearly had better hearing than she did, because he’d known the Scourge were coming and she hadn’t had a clue. And the hissing had the opposite effect on him than it was having on Annabelle. She was terrified, sweating, her heart in her throat. Nefarion and his shadows looked eager, if anything. He was standing in the clearing, making no move to draw a weapon or conceal himself, just waiting. Annabelle was absurdly focused on his hair. It was loose again today, just two small braids holding it back from his face. The cold breeze was lifting strands of it, making his hair mimic his shadows. If they both died today, she’d go down thinking about Nefarion’s ridiculously long, luxurious hair. Crazy.
Then the moment came, the one she’d been dreading for months. That day she’d run from the Scourge attack she’d hoped and prayed that she’d never get so close to one again. And now, thanks to Nefarion, she was watching a troop of them bleed through the trees like toxic waste. Their putrid gray skin, creepy yellow eyes, and sharp, fanged teeth were all on full display, the sight that haunted her dreams every night here again in front of her. They converged around Nefarion, surrounding him on all sides. Annabelle didn’t bother to count, there were at least fifty of the ugly bastards. Death was staring Nefarion in the face, and he didn’t even seem concerned. Annabelle was scared enough for both of them, though.
“Pretty Keeper,” one of the creatures hissed. “All alone in the wilderness. Where are your friends, pretty Keeper?” Annabelle noticed that the one who’d spoken didn’t seem to fear Nefarion at all. That was bad, right? Sure, Nefarion was only one Keeper, but he literally had shadows dancing around his body. Didn’t they know what that meant?
Nefarion didn’t even bother to respond to the Scourge leader. He rotated instead, taking in all the creatures surrounding him. Annabelle wasn’t sure what she’d see when she finally saw his face, but it wasn’t excitement. Truly, Nefarion looked savagely happy with what he was seeing. Annabelle was baffled. It was fifty plus enemies to one, how could be possibly be happy? There was even a grin on his face, which looked completely out of place. Hell, it wasn’t even really a grin, it was more of a lopsided snarl. He was insane, had to be.
“You should have stayed with your friends, Keeper. When we’re done, there won’t be enough of you left for your little friends to take home to bury.” The leader began to stalk forward, a huge, axe-like weapon poised to strike in his hand. Annabelle’s breath was frozen in her lungs—she was sure she was about to see her kind of sort of lover about to be slaughtered. She wanted to help, but not only did she have just a small, pitiful knife in her pocket, but Nefarion had also placed her so high up in the tree it would take her an hour to get down.
By the looks of it, they didn’t have an hour, or even half an hour, before things were entirely settled down below. The Scourge leader charged at Nefarion, and his minions took that as a sign and charged forward as well. Annabelle’s breath came rushing out of her in a cry of denial, and her heart was pounding so hard it ached. She didn’t know what there was between her and Nefarion, but if she wanted to explore it, she needed time to be with him, to know him, to think about every little detail of their interactions in exhaustive detail. For Pete’s sake, she at least wanted to see him naked, not see pieces of him littered all over the forest floor.
Just as the leader reached Nefarion though, one of the shadows shot forward and grabbed him by the neck. It lifted the Scourge higher, and higher, before flicking violently, sending the scum flying across the clearing to crash into a tree. Annabelle could see even from her distant vantage that the leader was just…broken. It didn’t move after the impact, it just laid there, it’s neck and limbs crooked. Annabelle looked back at Nefarion and saw a nightmare. There were so many shadows…so many. It was like her attack all over again, shadows slashing, blood spraying. This time she saw his shadows physically impale the Scourge, strangle them, crush them. And in the midst of it all was Nefarion, pulling knives from all over his body to throw, stab, cut.
It was an amazing sight. Horrible, macabre, and brutal, but amazing. She had been sure the Scourge had outnumbered Nefarion to such a degree that their deaths were inevitable. But the ease with which he was dispatching the enemy made her think he could handle even twice this number alone and not even break a sweat. He was clearly in his element, he killed all those Scourge without a moment of hesitation. It wasn’t even ten minutes before all those evil creatures were dead at his feet. And he still stood there, right in the middle of the clearing, looking around at the dead as his shadows slowly lessened, calmed, and retreated inside him.
Then suddenly, Nefarion looked up, right at her. In the gathering darkness, his form began to bleed into the night. His armor blended, and his hair, leaving only the luminescent skin of his face visible. His face and his eyes. His black eyes were burning up at her. Those black orbs were glowing, literally glowing. He didn’t move towards her, just stared up at her, like he was waiting for something. Annabelle didn’t hesitate. She leaned forward and held out her han
d.
Chapter 9
Nefarion worked on controlling himself in the aftermath of the attack. He still felt too keyed up, too savage. He wished there were more enemies to face, more Scourge to kill. These fifty or so creatures weren’t enough to appease the bloodlust that constantly shimmered under his skin. How many would be enough he didn’t know. Hundreds…thousands? Hatred for the Scourge was his constant companion every day. That hatred took him far from home hunting them after all these decades, always looking for more to kill. There could be no relief from it until the Scourge were completely wiped from existence.
Nefarion wasn’t a fool, he knew that even when they were all dead, there would still be a gaping hole in his heart that all their deaths couldn’t fill. All Keepers had a reason to hunt and kill Scourge. The Scourge invasion of Arthaneas had been brutal and bloody, and tragic. Balruin Keepers were brutal and bloody as a matter of course, it was just their nature. But Nefarion had lost a great treasure during that war. His mother…she hadn’t been like other Balruin Keepers. She’d been smaller, sweeter, and kinder. Others in their lands had looked down on her, and even Nefarion’s father had treated her harshly.
