Isla pivoted, taking Kian’s arm with him and forcing it behind the Lord’s back, adding pressure when Kian resisted. “I was lost to her when she was six months old and she wrapped her tiny fist around my finger. I swore then I would do whatever was needed to protect her.” He cursed when Kian shimmered, ghosting into shadow form long enough to twist his arm out of his grasp. “Cheating is beneath you, Kian.”
Chuckling darkly, Kian gave his Second a wolfish grin. “Remember that when I have you under me, Islador. When you swore to her to do anything to protect her, did this scenario ever cross your mind as a possibility?”
Isla’s eyes flashed like storm clouds. He took a step back and stared Kian down without blinking. Every inch of him a fucking warrior, from the set of his shoulders to the muscles built from training and work. His thighs were powerful, the muscles obvious even through the material of his pants—which would have to come off, very soon. “I’ve waited for this for a long time, Kian. Waited for you to fuck up, to drive her away. I just didn’t think you’d stoop to raping her for her first time.”
Indignation rose along with the swell of his temper. “I would not—”
“Don’t deny it. The girl was terrified, on the brink of bawling her fucking eyes out while you smothered her in chains, and dry as the desert despite two doses of your beloved tonic.” Furious, almost vibrating with the severity of his rage, Isla jabbed his finger into Kian’s bare chest. Hard. “So yes, my Lord, this scenario is nothing that hasn’t crossed my mind. Keeping her safe from your demon is my highest priority.”
Kian lashed out, his hand gripping Isla’s throat with punishment in mind. How dare his Second speak to him this way? “Your highest priority is whatever I tell you, Islador. Don’t forget your place.” His fingers tightened, but his friend didn’t move. They both knew Isla could kill him without exerting a great deal of effort. “What makes you think I won’t go to her chambers once I’m done with you?”
Another lightning bolt of fury zipped through the gray. “I’d kill you, brother, in ways you couldn’t comprehend. Do what you’re going to, Kian, so I can do what you’re supposed to and go tend to your traumatized beloved. Somehow I doubt she’ll want to see you for a while.”
Having that fact thrown in his face didn’t sit well. Snarling, Kian released his friend and spun him around, shoving him toward the altar. “Strip, Islador. Now, if you want me to be nice and offer you the oil.”
“Nice and you don’t fit in the same sentence right now,” his Second muttered, unfastening his pants and pushing them to the floor. He kicked them aside, braced his hands on the edge of the stone slab.
Kian was tempted to make him lay face down on the obsidian, prostrate himself before his Lord, but yanked the chain on the demon’s enthusiasm. What came next would change their dynamic from friendship and leadership into something more complex.
Snatching the oil, he lathered his hand with the slick substance and pulled firmly on his cock from root to tip, shuddering as sensation rippled up his shaft. Precum dripped and he knew Islador was in for a rough ride, perhaps rougher than even Allianna would have been subjected to. His Second was male, was strong, could bear the brunt of the demon’s sexual frustration and sadism in a way Allianna could not. Not that it would have stopped the demon if it was the little rose bent over in front of them now.
His hand slapped between Isla’s shoulders, driving his friend down to the slab and raising a taut backside into the air. Growling savagely, a cornered wolf, Isla’s every breath released on a snarl. He grunted when slick fingers traced between his legs, over his sac, into the crease between his cheeks.
“Relax, brother.” Head tilted back, demon at the forefront of his consciousness, Kian moaned as he pushed one thick finger into unclaimed territory. Islador made no sound, no protest, until Kian pressed another into him, stretched and manipulated the untainted hole. “Never wondered what the whores feel when we fuck them, Islador? What will you tell our little rose when she asks you how it feels to take my cock up your ass?”
There was a rasp in his Second’s voice, unsteady and choked. “Exchange places, Kian. I’d be happy to let you experience it.” His fingers dug into the slab. “You will not torture her with thoughts of this, Kian. She is innocent, she deserves to remain so for a while longer.”
Not much longer, Kian vowed. Islador had spared her tonight, but her time was running out. She would take the tonic, she would beg for his cock, and she would accept his son in her belly. That was all she was required to do, aside from an addendum or two.
His free hand gripped Isla’s hip, nails digging into the firm flesh and holding tight. The other pumped his cock once, twice, then directed the slick crown against Isla’s opening. “Innocence survived down here for twenty-five years, Islador. I made sure of it, so I could take it at my leisure.” With a strong jerk of his hips, his cock sank inside Isla. He barely held on as his Second went wild, rearing upright and swinging as he roared.
Wrapping his arm around his friend’s neck, Kian piled on the pressure, using Islador’s furious movement and his own desperate thrusts to seat himself fully in his Second’s ass. Breath whistling through the confines of Kian’s chokehold, Isla fell forward to brace his weight on the slab. Pained grunts broke the whistles and the dominant inside the man put up a spectacular fight.
“Think our little rose will like this, Islador? She’s strong but not as strong as you. Not as disciplined. Not as tolerant of pain. Think she’ll cry the first time, or are we putting money on her screaming?” The demon crawled out, toying with Isla like a rotten boy with a toy his friend wanted. It touched warm lips to Isla’s sweat-slicked shoulders, kissing and licking across the Second’s flesh. “Hurts, doesn’t it, big boy? I’m not even moving inside you yet and you’re wriggling like a fish on a hook. Wonder if the little female is as tight. Bet that ass is. Bet that ass stretches around my cock and weeps for mercy while you watch, helpless, unable to stop me from fucking every last hole she owns.”
Like a force of nature, Islador bellowed and shoved back from the altar, muscles bunching impressively from head to toe as he exploded. But Kian the weak was no longer in play, and the demon was in charge. Unstoppable, insatiable, and a long way from sanity.
The demon chuckled and slammed his knee into the back of Isla’s, toppling them both to the cold chamber floor. “Fight all you want, brother. This is what you want to protect Allianna from. This is what you’ll never save her from.” His nails scored thick red lines down the warrior’s back from shoulders to hips. “She belongs to me. Just as you belong to me.”
Islador grunted, bucking, battling furiously against the pounding rhythm of Kian’s hips against his ass. He stiffened, much to the demon’s delight, when Kian’s hand slipped beneath him and stroked Isla’s cock, fondling the length before gripping hard and jacking him in time to the demon’s thrusts.
“Your cock is your leash, Islador,” Kian purred, scraping his teeth over his Second’s shoulder. “It’s in my hand and I can lead you where the fuck I like. If I bring Allianna in here and order you to hammer that virgin ass while I ruin her cunt, you’d do it, wouldn’t you? I know you would, because for all your compassion and gentle veneer, you’re as big a sadist as I am.”
“No.” Forehead on the rocky floor, Islador groaned the word in denial.
The chamber echoed with the sound of flesh on flesh, animalistic groans and muffled cries. It filled with a warrior’s pain, a demon’s insanity, and cocooned them all in a veil of shadows so thick it seemed there would never be a way out.
“Come for me, brother.” Kian coaxed in a gentle, persuasive tone. His lips moved against the shell of Isla’s ear as he breathed deep of the scent of sweat and sex. “Spill your seed into my hand and I’ll reward you with what you’ve always wanted.”
Gasping, Isla clawed at the floor. “She loved you. You’ll destroy her.”
“When I’m finished with her, she’ll be the woman she was meant to be, Islador. Accept
your reward and she’ll be twice that woman. Between us, she will stand as a warrior queen. She will be everything we ever need.”
Kian praised his friend when he went limp and submitted. An unexpected result, admittedly. Riding high on the thrill of victory and the surge of orgasm tingling in his balls, he visualized the hot sheath surrounding his cock was not the ass of his best friend, his Second-in-command, but the wet, wanton pussy of his bride, welcoming his seed and bringing their son to life.
Islador moaned painfully, hips jerking in rapid shunts as wet heat slicked Kian’s hand. In response, the Lord of Shadows bit down hard on his Second’s shoulder, biting deep and true as his own release pulsed through his cock and marked Islador as his property.
Placated for now, pleased with the night’s events, the demon slunk into hiding and left Kian with the task of cleaning up the mess.
For the moment, he was content where he was, feeling Isla’s cock pump against his palm, humming lightly under his breath as his friend’s velvety flesh rippled along his own shaft in time with the semen spurting onto the floor. He tasted blood and licked lazily at the savage mating mark he’d left on his Second.
Another surprise. Perhaps a useful one.
Time ticked past, hearts and breathing slowing, body temperatures dropping as their sweat cooled. Kian petted Isla absently, drifting as he thought of doing this with his little rose, soothing away her aches as he held her, keeping his cock inside her so his semen might take hold.
“Get off me, you fucker.” Voice violently cold, Islador smacked his head back into Kian’s. Taken aback by the move, Kian winced and rolled, disengaging from his friend quickly enough to make them both hiss in discomfort. On his feet, Isla glared down at his Lord with a vehemence that took Kian by surprise. “Allianna is out of your bounds, Kian. You want to fuck, you summon me or one of your whores. Don’t ever subject her to that monster or I will rip your heart from your chest and make you eat it.”
Kian lifted an eyebrow at the semen trailing down the inside of his friend’s thighs. “That monster takes what he wants, when he wants it. Substituting yourself in her stead won’t appease him for long, brother. The best thing you can do for her is bring her here and walk away for a night. She is my bride, and in turn, his as well. We need her, we won’t harm her.”
Islador snorted in disbelief. “It’s we now, is it, my Lord.”
“It has been for a long time. I know you war with your conscience, Isla, and I commend you for the having the strength to contain it to the degree you have. Not all of us are that strong when it comes to our base halves.”
Disdainfully, Islador regarded his friend. “Yes, my Lord, it shows.”
“Are you ashamed, brother?” Kian got to his feet, cracked his neck.
Isla shook his head. Indeed, there was no shame in those steely eyes, only a simmering anger. “No, my Lord, I am not ashamed. I’d do it again to spare Allianna. I’d suffer through this night after night to keep her screams from tearing at the walls.” He bent and grabbed his pants, fisting his hand in the material as he winced. “Your word you will leave her be?”
Irritated by the implication, Kian waved his Second away. “The little rose is safe from my attention tonight, Islador. Go, make yourself presentable before you go tuck her into bed. Wouldn’t want her to know the price you paid to keep her from the beast.”
Isla just smirked before he turned his back on Kian. “Give the girl more credit, brother. She knows the price I paid, and she’s aware of what you’ll demand from her. Whether she pays it or not is a decision only she will make.”
Kian scowled as his Second flashed through the portal and disappeared. What the hell did that mean? Every decision in life came with a price; every step a person took changed their destiny in tiny ways. His steps had brought him to this critical point in time.
Lord of Shadows, with King of Shadows within his reach.
His mood distinctly sour, Kian cast his eye around the chamber. Tomorrow, he would speak to the necromancer about something stronger to quell his little rose’s terror. Something potent and with stamina, that would carry her past the initial hour of discomfort so she would rouse in the midst of passion and remain there.
Stop coddling her, the demon chided. She will survive the ordeal.
Ordeal. A fucking horrible word. Kian scrubbed a hand over his face and decided to have the chains on the altar shortened. The less Allianna could move, the less damage he would do. Would she prefer a blindfold the first time? Maybe that would be easier on her—dose her with a more effective tonic, blindfold and restrain her while he waited for it to work.
We like terror, the demon reminded him with a cruel laugh. We like giving pain. This little rose is no different to any other virgin cunt we’ve had in the last year. She will scream and she will beg, and we will love it. And when her screams and pleas turn feral, the wanton cries of a female in heat, we will give her exactly what she demands.
She was different. Kian rapped his knuckles against his forehead and tried to ignore the demon. He hadn’t lied when he told Islador he commended his strength; his own lack of it when dealing with the demon was a constant nuisance, twisting his mind and polluting him with unpleasant desires.
Allianna was his blooming rose, his future queen and mother to his son.
Kian ran his tongue over his teeth, tasting Isla’s blood. That was another problem altogether, one neither of them had addressed. A bite from a dominant male during sex was often decreed a bonding bite, a mark of ownership. The demon hadn’t spoken an untruth when he said they now led Islador around by a leash on his cock—it would be permissible and humiliating for Kian’s Second.
He deserves it for thinking he’s so high above his station. Ordering us about. Telling us we cannot have our female. We should fuck him in front of her, show his treasure just how big a hero he is when he submits to our cock and lays moaning on the floor, his cum pooling beneath him and ours dripping from his ass.
Exhausted, Kian shut the demon up. They would do nothing of the sort. The rest of the night was for bathing and rest. He was in dire need of a bath and food. The frantic energy that had driven him to fuck Islador so fiercely had burned away, leaving a tired shell and vulnerable mind.
Chapter Five
Alone in his quarters, Islador stood in the shower and let scalding water pour over his battered body. His skin twitched and protested as the heat coursed over bruised muscles and the long fucking scratches Kian’s demon had taken great delight in scoring into his back.
Washing the stink of sex and sweat away eased some of his anxiety. As a dominant male, being marked by another—especially the goddamn Lord of Shadows—did not sit well with him. The fact his cock still burned from the twist and pull of Kian’s hand, the accompanying warning, was enough to have his ire rising quickly.
He lathered and rinsed, lathered and rinsed, until the scent of the gel eradicated the smell of his own blood and semen from his nostrils. It was harder still to wipe the dull ache of his ass from his thoughts—it throbbed like a beacon, reminding him of the sacrifice he’d made.
Allianna wouldn’t have escaped that chamber unscathed. Even if her body didn’t succumb from injuries Kian gave her, her mind...her mind was strong, full of intelligence and wit and secrets beyond the telling, but Isla didn’t know if that combination would be enough to keep her sane.
He wasn’t keen on testing it.
Dripping, finally clean, he stepped out of the shower and dried himself quickly. Naked, limping just a fraction, he strode into his bedroom with the intention of slipping on another pair of dark pants and making his way to Allianna’s room for the night. He trusted Kian’s word—he did not trust the demon.
Instead he stopped short and peered at his bed, studying the lump beneath the covers. Had that been there when he came in? He couldn’t remember, he’d stomped in and slammed the door, fuming with the events of the last couple hours and his part in them, and gone straight into the bathroom.
&n
bsp; With a sigh, he padded over and peeled one corner back quietly. A sad smile curved his lips as he studied the riot of white hair still confined in a braid, the curve of Allianna’s cheek and jaw. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even, and she slept in as small a ball as she could manage.
Was it any wonder his heart had been lost years ago?
Silently, he moved back to the other room and lit the fire. The Shadow realm could be cool at night. For the most part it remained on the warm side, but sometimes the temperature dropped and a skinny little lady like his treasure would feel it deeply.
When the flames flickered and devoured the wood, he eased back into his favorite chair. A reclining wonder he’d smuggled back through the portal on one of his many journeys to the mortal plane. Grimacing as his ass and shoulder ached in unison, he steepled his fingers together, elbows braced on the arms of the chair, and stared at the bed.
At the ethereal creature still curled into a ball with...shit, was that her thumb in her mouth? She hadn’t done that in years that he knew of. It had been a self-comforting mechanism until she was...eight, if he recalled correctly. Time passed differently for him, and sometimes he had to remind himself she wasn’t ages-old like the rest of the realm.
She was essentially a baby.
Beautiful, innocent, and doomed. There would be no sweet sexual awakening for his little one, not the one he would have wished for her. She deserved to be revered, to be worshipped with hands and mouth until her body ripened with pleasure and wiped her mind free.
Then, only then, could she be taken. Slowly, gently, with her lover’s lips whispering calming endearments and her body flowing beneath his. Joining fluidly, effortlessly, as her cries sang into his ears.
Islador rubbed his thumb over his mouth. He’d helped her escape once, and two loyal friends had paid a costly price. Ferken and Daffed had known Isla had been the one to open the portal for Allianna’s dash for freedom, and they had kept their silence to the grave.
King Of Shadows: The Shadowcrown Duet Page 6
