Her Dark Soul

by Kim Knox

  Marek’s hand gripped her leg and a gasp escaped her. She stared at him. The hunger in his eyes ramped her heartbeat. What had he just seen in her that forced his reaction? “You want this here? Now?” He stood and tugged her out of her chair, pressing her backside against the wide desk. His fingers fisted her tunic and pulled it over her hip. “Want me to fuck you and make you come?”

  Her heart pounded. Was this another of his games, where he’d touch her, tease her and then pull back when her body screamed for him? “Don’t play with me, Marek.”

  “Isn’t that what you want?” He slipped warm fingers into the band of her breeches and squeezed her ass. “For me to take you?” He pulled at the thick material, exposing her. Ash sucked in a quick breath. “Take you as he did.”

  The insane idea that he was jealous seared into her thoughts with the bitter turn of his words. “Why now?” She pulled her gaze from his to stare at the closed door. “Tekani could come in at any moment.”

  Marek pointed a finger back over his shoulder and a streak of fizzling light arrowed towards the door. It caught in the keyhole and the heavy thunk of the lock made her jump. “Now he can’t.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  His warm, strong fingers stroked over her bared thighs and his thumbs teased the creases of her legs. The simple touch shot heat into her belly and she bit back a moan. “You ask too many questions.”

  She pulled in a tight breath, trying—and failing—to ignore the light brush of his thumb over her skin. “Don’t you think I should?” He moved closer and her heart thudded. Ash pushed down the sharp need to take his mouth, lose herself in his taste, his touch. Something about his sudden acceptance, his mutual desire, didn’t sit right with her. “You’ve fought this. Denied it.”

  A thin smile pulled at his mouth and the power in him caught her, stopped her breath. “Now I’m not.”

  “Marek…”

  His dark gaze pinned her. “We can talk…or I can bring you to ecstasy.” The heat in his eyes, the desire that made his gaze almost molten, dried her mouth. “I shared you with him and now you’re bound to him.” Marek’s fingers tightened against her thighs, simply a brief reaction before his smile deepened, became wicked. “Yet I still have you half-naked and aching for me.”

  You’re my primary. The words burned in her parched mouth, but she couldn’t say them. Marek didn’t want to speak the words into her flesh, the way that Lucas had. A part of her shrank back from that loss. Yet she could have him. He was offering what he could of himself. She tilted her head. “Then make me come.”

  He touched her jaw, a light, teasing path over her skin. His thumb pressed against her bottom lip and his mouth dipped close to hers. “Come with my name, Ash,” he murmured. “Think of me.”

  His other hand drew shallow patterns against her mound, the slip of his fingers over her wet flesh bringing torment as his light touch drove heat into her belly. The wood of the desk warmed against her backside and she shifted against it, too aware of Marek watching her. His eyes pinned her and his breath warmed her lips. She remembered his taste, ached for it. “Why are you waiting?”

  “I want to savor you.” His lips brushed hers, the ghost of a touch, and Ash pulled in a breath, her mouth parting under him. “I don’t know what will happen to us.”

  Her heart tightened. She didn’t know who this stranger was who wore Marek’s face. Something else pushed through her flesh, stronger, more dangerous than lust, and her hand trembled as she let her fingertips touch his cheek. She couldn’t, wouldn’t put a name to it because their future was uncertain. Her tongue tasted the firmness of his bottom lip and he sucked in a quick breath. “I know what’s about to happen.”

  His mouth curved against hers. “True.”

  The taste of his lips, his tongue, the heat of his mouth, flowed over her. She wanted him. He was her primary, a man who had tormented her for days. Caught in a dream with him had been wild and incredible. But she wanted this, the reality of his skin against hers. She gripped his arm, her fingers making little impression on the hard muscle beneath his thin tunic sleeve, and tugged him closer. He eased between her thighs and she pushed at her breeches, kicking them free of her legs. They landed in a puddle of cloth on the wooden floor. Yes, the thrum of her blood would not be denied.

  “Eager, Ash?”

  “You need to savor me faster.”

  His laughter brushed against her cheek. “How do you want me to do that?”

  “You decide. You’re my primary—”

  “Ash…” He growled her name, low, and it shot heat through her body. Her fingers tightened against his arm. “I told you. We can never have that bond, never be deomos. It isn’t possible.”

  She hooked her bare legs around him, teasing the length of his covered erection over her pussy. She found his mouth again and for several hard heartbeats she lost herself in his taste, his heat. Her fingers threaded through his hair and she deepened the kiss before pulling back. “Pretend,” she murmured against his lips, her breath short, her body aching with the need to do so much more than simply kiss him. “Pretend that’s who you are to me. Just this once.”

  Marek closed his eyes, the tightened corners showing his reluctance. In that moment, she could almost feel his thoughts, feel the push of them. Guilt touched her again. The feeling that it wasn’t right, mixed with anger and other darker emotions, which burst at her in dark, confused fragments. He opened his eyes and the rush of emotion stopped. Dead. He’d regained control and his gaze gripped her, the power of what he was—son of a powerful custodian mother, son of a dark soul father—gleamed there. It stopped her breath and the tight curl of need pushed her hard against him.

  “Say yes, Marek.”

  His mouth thinned and her heart turned over. “A primary decides how to act. He cannot be told.”

  The first flicker of her release took her then, bursting unexpected warmth in a quick wave of hot magic through her flesh. She gasped, and found his mouth covering hers. His hand pushed between them, his fingers finding her flesh, touching, slipping, rubbing…and then the blunt head of his cock pressed against her folds.

  Her heartbeat soared and she moaned into his mouth, her fingers fisting in his hair. He teased her, stoking his cock over her pussy, his hand on her ass, holding her to him. Ash mewled at the thin resistance of her virginity breaking and the first push of him into her body. His hand gripped her thigh and his mouth broke from hers. Their foreheads touched and Marek’s low, soft groan ran fire through her blood.

  “You belong to me.”

  Her body, tight, untested, resisted him and her fingers dug into his arm to deflect the brief flare of pain.

  “Say it.”

  “I…” His hands tightened on her ass and her thigh, then he pulled back and pushed forward, stretching her, easing himself into her body. She closed her eyes, pushing her hips forward. She knew the intense joy they could share and she wanted it, wanted him. “I…belong to you.”

  His sudden thrust made her cry out and he buried himself deep inside her, the aching fullness familiar and yet strange. Marek pulled a kiss from her mouth, his teeth nipping at her bottom lip. Fire sparked in his eyes. “Lean back.”

  She obeyed, scrolls cracking under her palms. Her fingers curled against the cold wood as the change in angle rushed heat through her blood. Marek ran his hands over her thighs, murmured words she knew…or she thought she knew. Sibilant, curling sounds moved with the pattern of his fingertips against her skin as the promised words of their binding flowed from him. She could almost imagine the glow of his magic sinking into her flesh, tying her to him, and the twist of her hips elicited a soft groan.

  “I will make you mine for as long as I desire it.”

  He leaned forward and placed his palms flat on the table. Ash tightened her thighs against him, drawing him deeper, and she flexed her muscles around his cock. She grinned at his curse. “How long will that be?”

  He glared at her, fury and need b
urning through him. Her heart thudded. The rush of pride that Lucas felt, the honor of having Marek as their primary gripped her, because his strength, his power was almost incandescent. His mouth thinned. “Questions, Ash?” He robbed her of her smart reply with a thrust of his hips. “I don’t think so.”

  The low, lyrical binding words wove around her now, almost forming the strings of light from her dream, glinting in the soft light of the clay lamp. And Marek watched her as he spoke, as he stroked into her, his voice thickening but never stopping in the soft run of sound.

  Ash met every stroke, her calves pressing hard against his backside, urging him faster, harder, the delicious push of him into her willing flesh flicking liquid fire under her skin. The pressure low in her belly increased and she pulled her gaze from his, to watch the slide of his cock… Her breath shortened and she clenched around him, she couldn’t help herself. Watching him fuck her, feeling the hot, hard stroke of him, feeling his body as it mixed with the curl of ancient words within her flesh, tightened her fingers into fists against the wooden tabletop.

  “Look at me.”

  The command snapped her head up and Marek took her mouth. Yet still the words flowed around her, growing stronger with the turn of magic, slipping under her tunic to caress her skin, threading over breasts, her shoulders, easing down over her spine. Heat chased the words. She arched into him, groaning at the brush of his bared hips against her inner thighs.

  The strokes increased and the press of his flow of binding words burned against her skin, hot, wanted. Right. He was her primary and he would mark her as such, chasing magic under her skin, forcing the binding words into her open flesh. Then she would be his. She’d belong to both men and that thought deepened the throb low in her belly.

  “Ash…” He groaned her name against her lips. “It’s not real.”

  She took his mouth again, her lips, tongue eager for him. She would prove how real it was, prove it in her own flesh. He couldn’t deny her now. “And after this, when we find Lucas…” The image from her dream burst over her, of the three of them naked, of both men taking her, driving her release through her. Her heart hammered, her body on fire with the need to have both of them. Marek’s fast breathing said he somehow shared the image in her head, she could almost feel the shape of it, the push of his reaction. His need. “And I beat out the words that will fix the bind. The words that finally unite us.” They burned on the tip of her tongue, strange, known but never spoken, never understood by her before. “As you both take me, both fuck me.”

  Marek’s jaw clenched and fury mixed with his desire. He thrust into her, gripping her thighs, pinning her to him. “No.”

  Ash glared at him, the woman with demon blood rising with the fire in her veins. Marek was rare. Her awakened instincts shouted it. It was enough that she had taken him as her primary for his power over her to fire in her blood. Rules were his—and so hers—to bend and break. “You’re mine. You’re both mine.”

  Marek laughed. “Is that what you think?”

  “I know.”

  “No, all that you know is this.” He thrust deep and the sudden keen of the ancient words flared against her skin. He leaned forward, forcing her to dip under him until her spine lay flat against the desk. He loomed over her, his beautiful face thick with shadow and gold. “I plan to fuck you, but my command is not to make a sound. Even as you come, you must stay silent.” He paused and then he rolled his hips, the sensation rioting through her. “Understood?”

  Her body thrummed with his order and her trembling hands caressed the taut strength of his arms. She shifted her hips, locking her legs over his ass. The change in position allowed him to stroke deeper into her willing flesh, each hard push of his hips stretching her, driving a wild heat through her veins. “You wanted me to say your name.”

  He gave her a wicked grin. “I think this will be more fun.” And he kissed her, his tongue mirroring the deep thrusts of his cock before he broke his mouth from hers with a hard gasp. “Don’t you?”

  Ash couldn’t answer and she bit at her bottom lip, her gaze fixed on him, watching the fiery magic that burned in his eyes. The need to speak surged, but she could almost feel the shape of his thoughts. Desire surged and the wicked smile cutting his mouth ran liquid heat through her flesh. The sure, slow push of his hips arched her spine against the desk and she clutched at the hard muscles of his arms.

  She wanted everything about Marek. Deserved everything. He was her primary, whether he could admit it to himself or not. Ancient instincts bubbled under her flesh, demanding that he take her, that the keen of the ancient words flowing over her skin sink into her open soul as Lucas’ had. Their joining had healed him, strengthened his body after the fight with the custodians. She could feel it. Wasn’t that proof enough for Marek that they should be bonded? He would bind himself to her and the mixing of their magic would enhance them…

  The strange thoughts spiraled through her mind, wrapping around the building heat, the raw twist of magic rising up from her belly. She met every hard thrust. Her thighs tightened against her hips and her ankles locked against his ass. Ash ached to kiss him again, to lose herself in his delicious heat and taste, but in that moment, she wanted his gaze on her. To see the burning need in his eyes, to know that she sparked that fire within him. Marek watched her and she reveled in it.

  “You want me?” His mouth twitched, something wicked and darkly amused…but there was something else and she could almost feel it churning under his thoughts. She needed to grab it and it ached that she couldn’t. She blinked and the heat in his gaze wiped away all other thought. His twitch of a smile deepened. “Going to tell me how much?”

  She mirrored his smile then pressed her lips together.

  “Good girl.”

  Her mouth thinned, but his sudden thrust made her gasp. His head dipped to hers, their foreheads touching. The gesture, somehow more intimate than the fact that he was buried hard and hot inside her, squeezed her heart. The flow of the ancient words deepened, running like warm honey over her skin. “For now, for this moment, I have you. You’re mine.”

  The first flicker of her release warmed her flesh and she pushed against him, wanting more, wanting him harder and faster, fucking her until she screamed his name. Damn his orders. The heat of the other woman she was, the one just awakened to her demon blood and magic, wanted more. She jerked him forward with her ankles and his gaze narrowed.

  “Who’s the primary here, Ash?” His low growl burst another quick surge of fire and joy under her skin and it made her greedy for more. He pushed deep, his lips skimming hers in sweet temptation. “I have you.”

  She felt the heavy press of unsaid words, but he didn’t give her time to think as his strokes, deep and hard into her body, increased. His breath warmed her mouth, the rush of the ancient words thickening against her, pushing as hard as he did. Little pants escaped her and she caught her fingers in his hair, desperate to close the short distance and take his mouth.

  The desk creaked under them from Marek’s strength, the rhythmic pounding into her body. She grabbed at his tunic, her fingers fisting the leather. She wanted his skin, the feel of it hot and smooth under her touch. He was right for her. So right. Everything about her, about Lucas and Marek, simply slotted into place, into perfection. Into deomos.

  The surge of ancient words rushed against her skin and pushed down, pushed deep. Ash arched against the delicious invasion. The ache low in her belly throbbed and she could almost, almost feel the sweet taste of her release bound with the fierce rush of her magic.

  With another thrust, she came and Marek caught her cry with his mouth, his deep, wild kiss driving the blistering flare of light and heat that wrapped around her flesh and forcing a ferocious joy through her body. She crushed her eyes against the dance of bright light, clinging to Marek, desperate for him to join her, to openly seal their bond. And the promise of it taunted her, there, in his final few erratic thrusts—

  The crash of the door jer
ked Marek away and Ash bit back a scream.

  “Marek Savada.” A man dressed in the leather and buckled tunic of a custodian stood in the open doorway. Behind him in the heavy gold of the afternoon sun stood other men, dog reins wrapped tight around their fists. In the shadows, beasts snarled and yapped. The man’s gaze drifted over their half-nakedness and a hard smile quirked his mouth. “Yes, you’re exactly where we thought to find you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Ash tugged at her tunic, desperate to hide her nakedness from the smirking men. Marek stilled her hands and eased the fabric over her hips. The song, the binding words had died unfulfilled. His gaze held her and she tried to find courage in the strength and power she found in him. She pulled in a tight breath and watched him ease back from her. He belted his trousers, his body blocking her lower half from the view of the men in the doorway.

  “When did you get put in charge of Zorion’s pets, Kanda?” Marek glanced at him over his shoulder as he helped her pull the long tunic down to her knees. “It’s a drop for you.”

  Kanda laughed, something dry, hard. Ash looked up at him as she picked up her breeches and struggled into them. Marek’s large hands steadied her, but he kept his attention fixed on the intruders.

  “Lord Zorion has offered an invitation to the palace for you and your whore.”

  Marek stiffened and his hands clenched into fists. The hot metal stink of his magic shrouded his hands, flickers of blue-white light sparking from between his fingers. Ash touched his arm to calm him. They couldn’t escape. Marek could take on the men, but the dogs were impervious to his magic.

  She pressed herself against him. The fizz of magic burned against her thigh and her lips touched his ear. He shivered. Her fingers involuntarily tightened around the hard muscle of his arm. The insanity of wanting him hadn’t faded. “They’re taking us to where we want to be.”