by Cassi Carver
Gavin didn’t say a word until they had reached a small cottage on the edge of the tropical forest. He pulled Kara inside and released her hand, turning to her with fury burning in his eyes. “What have you done? You were only supposed to observe, Kara.”
“I saw enough, thank you very much.”
“No, you did much more than that. You made a dangerous enemy and claimed a warrior as your own on your first night on Mercury Island!”
“Oh, come on, Gavin! You can’t really think I would…” she began, but Jaxon knelt at her feet and took her hand, his silver wings folding against his back.
He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them tenderly. “Bless you, my lady. Even if you did it only as a kindness and don’t want me as a man, I’m yours. Thank you.” He kissed her palm and released her but stayed where he was.
“What’s this all about, Gavin? A hazing? A ritual I don’t understand?”
“We decreed a lady could not have more than fourteen men in her harem. It was causing too many fights between the men who already belonged to a female. They simply weren’t getting enough time with their lady. Some, like Lace, have made a game of filling the spots. Maybe to spite me…” He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s getting out of control. Jaxon, how long have you been with Lace?”
Jaxon swallowed, gazing at the floor. “One hundred and thirty-three years, my lord. I came with her to Mercury Island, but I was with her long before that.”
Kara gasped. “A hundred and thirty-three years and that’s how she breaks it off? What kind of monsters are these women?”
Jaxon frowned and met Kara’s eyes. “Lace isn’t a monster. I’d say she was…bored. And she hasn’t conceived a child in over three hundred years. The strain is wearing on her.” He glanced up at Gavin. “She’s interested in you, my lord. If you could couple with her and give her a child, maybe she would return to her old self and take me ba—” His lips snapped shut, as if his pride had intervened and saved him from uttering the words.
“You’d go back to her?” Kara asked in surprise.
Jaxon’s folded wings disappeared into the slits in his back. “I’m yours now, my lady. I will not attempt to rejoin Lace’s harem.”
“But you want to?”
He gave her a sad smile, the first upward tilt of his lips she’d seen. “One hundred and thirty-three years devoted to one woman is a long time. I can’t sleep without her scent in my nostrils. I can’t breathe without knowing she’s safe.” His rich brown eyes welled and Kara’s heart ached for him. She couldn’t understand that kind of loyalty to such a callous woman.
“Jaxon…I’m sorry for your loss,” Gavin said, his discomfort showing in his voice. “Go to the palace. You’ll find your new mistress’s quarters between Lord Julian’s chambers and my own. That is your home now. You need a shower and a change of clothes. You look about Aiden’s size—I’m sure he won’t mind lending you some things until I recover your property from Lace’s camp. Ask a servant when you arrive and they will help you get settled.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Jaxon bowed his head, then got to his feet and stepped outside the cottage. Kara saw his gray wings extend and his muscular form take flight. She felt guilty ogling the poor man’s naked backside, but it left her with no doubt that not only was Lace mean-spirited, but to give up a man like Jaxon, she must also be crazy.
As soon as he was out of earshot, she turned to Gavin. “I have a room in the palace? Why?”
His jaw flexed in the light cast by the fire. “In case you chose to stay with us. Julian suggested it, and I agreed it was a good idea. I didn’t think you’d actually need it to initiate your harem.”
She tugged her peach dress up. “I don’t need a room here, and I’m not initiating anything.”
“You publicly chose him, Kara! Without even knowing the rules of Demiáre society. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that you’re all really fucked up and I couldn’t let him be humiliated by that woman! That’s what I was thinking.”
“Well,” he conceded. “It’s done now. You offered and he accepted. He’s yours.”
Kara swallowed. “What exactly does that mean?”
Gavin raked another angry hand through his blond hair. “It means he will give his life to protect you and you agree to bring him into your fold. The oath is sealed by allowing him to mate you.”
“What?” Kara blanched, but her traitorous body purred its acceptance. Images of Julian’s body rocking against hers filled her vision until she could barely see, and then the sight morphed into Julian and Jaxon, taking turns plunging into her depths.
Sweat instantly beaded on her skin, seeping from her pores. She felt feverish. “That’s a stupid tradition. I was doing it to be nice.”
“Damn foolish girl,” he burst out, his anger finally getting the best of him. “I can’t protect you from one man before you bind yourself to another. You’ve put me in a difficult position, Kara. I can’t keep three hundred men in check if I don’t enforce the rules.”
Kara’s mouth fell open. “You wouldn’t ask me do this against my will, would you, Gavin?”
He blew out a breath and stepped forward to take her hands in his. “Of course not, princess. Let me think.” He paused for a moment. “We can send him away. We’ll send him to another continent for a decade or so. No one will question it. Your will is his command.”
“I didn’t stand up for him to make his life worse. I’m not going to send him into exile. He can keep my room. I’m going home tonight anyway.”
“Hiding away in your room won’t help his standing here. Our sense of smell is too acute, Kara. Just as Julian marked you tonight for the world to know, every man here will know you didn’t want Jaxon and his shame will be complete. It’s more humane to send him away.”
Kara looked around the small cottage and found a chair. She plopped into it with a heavy sigh. “It’s like I woke up in the Twilight Zone. This is too much.” Her mind was buzzing, but her throat felt tight and her skin was still slick. She needed Julian. She licked her lips and cast a furtive glance at Gavin’s muscled thighs.
“Think, Kara…” she mumbled. “Okay. I have an idea and you’re going to have to trust me. I’ll spend the night with Jaxon and by the time I leave in the morning, no one will doubt he’s mine.”
Gavin blinked. “No. This is my fault. I wanted to show you the dangers of giving in to your Demiáre urges. How could I have known you’d stand up to Lace and beat her at her own game?” He laughed. “Look who I’m talking to. Of course I should have known.”
“Everything’s going to be okay.” Kara’s chin tilted up with a confidence she didn’t feel. “Show me my parents’ stuff, then I’ll settle this problem with Jaxon and check on Julian before I go. It’s fine.” Catching a serial rapist at home was looking tame compared to the mess on Mercury Island.
“You already have the other half of your father’s ring. Your mother’s journal is at the palace, and I had the painting of her hung in your room.”
“A journal?” She didn’t know what she was expecting, but a journal wasn’t it. But maybe a journal was exactly what she needed. How better to get to know a mother who was long dead?
“I left it on the nightstand next to your bed. Come. Let’s get this over with.”
As Gavin held Kara in his arms, he wondered how, in the name of Og, things had gotten so out of control. He wanted to keep flying and take her away to a place where she didn’t have a warrior waiting in her room, a place where his best friend hadn’t made a sire’s claim over the woman Gavin wanted for himself.
But Gavin had always been strong. And since the day he’d turned his back on the old ways, he’d always put the needs of his clan above his own. All he had to do was make sure Julian stayed asleep while Kara followed through on what she intended.
“Would you like for me to stay with you during your time with him?” He didn’t know if he could without punching somebody, but that was nothing
compared to what Julian would do to Jaxon if the other warrior so much breathed in Kara’s direction.
“Uh…” She nestled closer to Gavin’s chest. “Outside the door, maybe? Just in case…”
“Kara, tell me what you’re going to do.”
“Please, don’t ask. Let me fix this mess I made.”
“Promise me you won’t let him touch you.”
“I promise.” She squeezed his shoulder. “And because he’s sworn to me, he won’t hurt me or…force me…even if he wants to?”
“No.” His feet touched down on the balcony railing of Kara’s room in the palace. “The Warrior’s Bond seems to give a man more will than he could ever find on his own. If you say no, he won’t force you.”
Kara stepped onto the marble floor. “Explain everything to Julian for me. Tell him I’m still planning on him coming to dinner tomorrow night.” She gave him a tremulous smile, but her skin glistened like a wet rose petal in the moonlight. She had no idea what Julian’s seed was awakening in her. He wanted to kill his best friend for what he’d done to Kara. He wanted to flog himself for not telling her the truth. It was simply a matter of not wanting her to shut them out of her life. She needed their protection more than she knew.
“I’ll tell him,” he said. “He’ll understand.” Gavin was glad his nose didn’t grow like the fairytale boy made of wood. Julian was likely going to strip the living flesh from Jaxon’s bones the moment he woke. Gavin’s only hope was that Kara wouldn’t be around to see it. “I’ll be waiting at your front door. One word from you and I’ll be there.”
“Thank you, Gavin. For everything.” Kara reached up on her tiptoes and placed a soft kiss on his cheek, then turned and walked through the sheer curtains.
Chapter Sixteen
Kara wasn’t sure what to expect from her new room in the palace, but since she’d never had a nice place before, she almost rocked to a stop when she saw the lavish furnishings and the softly feminine decorations in different shades of cream and blue. Some things looked way beyond antique, but the room also carried the scents of new rugs and fabrics.
The more she looked around, the more she was convinced the room had been recently decorated. How had Gavin known she would be visiting? Why would he think she would even want to stay one night on Mercury Island, much less have her own place here?
Kara saw the light blue silk comforter on her king-sized bed shift, and she crept forward to inspect the restless lump. Jaxon’s face was visible, his eyes firmly shut, but the rest of him was tucked under the blanket. He was freshly showered, already looking much better than when she’d first seen him. What had Lace done to him to have him in such a filthy state? How could Gavin and the other lords allow the women to treat their men that way? It was sickening.
On the nightstand next to the bed was a leather-bound book. The journal Gavin had promised? She might have grabbed it right then if she hadn’t glanced above the bed and been stopped dead in her tracks. Hanging on the wall was a huge painting of a beautiful woman. Was that her mother? She looked more like the woman in the square than someone related to Kara.
The curvy blond staring back at her wore her hair in a regal bun, with wisps of flaxen hair falling around her face. Instead of the gown Kara would have expected, Deanna was wrapped in a soft blue cloth, clutching the fabric to her body, covering her most intimate parts. The artist had captured the exact essence of spirit Gavin talked about. Sweet. Docile. Seductive. All the things Kara would never be.
She squinted and crawled up on the mattress, hiking her dress and scooting on her knees toward the headboard to get a closer look.
Jaxon shot upright in bed. “My lady. I wasn’t sure you would come. Forgive me for…” He gestured to the rumpled blankets.
“Hey,” Kara replied in greeting, trying to pull her gaze away from her mother’s image.
Jaxon must have been oblivious to the undercurrents in the room. He had his own worries. “I’m sorry for imposing on you…but I suppose this is where I belong now.”
He didn’t seem too happy about it, and Kara couldn’t blame him. He’d been with Lace for over a century. Any other living situation was going to take some getting used to.
Kara sat on the edge of the bed, pushing her parents out of her mind until she could be alone. She wasn’t even ready to tell Abbey what she’d discovered. First things first. “I’ll be going home soon, Jaxon. You can stay here until we figure something out.”
“I’ll go where you go.”
“No, that isn’t necessary. Really.” She put a little too much emphasis on the last word.
“I have no place here anymore, and when the men discover you didn’t truly want me, the torment will not end. To be rejected by not one but two females who have chosen me… It won’t go well for me.”
She scooted a little closer, trying to ignore the clean, masculine scent of him as she wiped at her damp skin. “I have an idea. And after we’re through, no man here will doubt you belong to me in every sense of the word.”
His eyes widened. “You want to consummate the bond?”
Kara couldn’t help being slightly offended by the lack of enthusiasm in his voice. “No. Not exactly.”
“I don’t want to appear ungrateful, my lady, but it’s been a long night. I’m confused.”
Kara took a deep breath. “All we need to convince them is your scent on my body, right?”
He frowned and seemed to stop breathing for a moment. “If you want me, I’m yours to take. I won’t deny you, mistress.”
“Oh, Jaxon, no. I’m not trying to force you to ‘mate’ with me. I don’t want that, and it’s clear you aren’t ready either. But…if you could…” She could barely choke the words out. “If you could maybe…” She grimaced. “Oh, crap. This is harder than I thought.”
When she rested her chin in her hand, Jaxon smiled and took her other hand in his. “Tell me, mistress. I’ve never known a Demiáre female who couldn’t speak her mind. You must have led a strange life.”
Not nearly as strange as the conversation she was having now. She tamped down her embarrassment, thinking it was nothing compared to what Jaxon would go through if she returned home without taking care of this.
“Here.” She reached under her dress and pulled off her panties. “Go into the bathroom and, uh…put your ‘scent’ on them. I’ll wear them back to the village and no one will be the wiser.”
“Oh,” he replied. “I see. That is clever.” But the look in his eyes expressed more doubt than encouragement. “That sounds easy enough.”
Kara stared at Jaxon’s uneasy expression, noting he didn’t so much as twitch a muscle toward the bathroom. “What’s the matter?”
He took in a deep, slow breath, as though even speaking took energy he didn’t have. “I’m not sure I would be able to accomplish that tonight. I’ve had a difficult time since…” He glanced down and his face flushed. “The trials she put me through were not…kind.”
What had Lace done to this poor man to turn him from a favored lover to a scrap of his former self? “Why did you let her treat you that way, Jaxon? I don’t understand.”
“It’s not her fault.” His voice held a hint of defiance. “At your age, young mistress, you can’t fathom what the monotony of the years can do to the mind. Inside, I know she’s still the beautiful woman I loved for over thirteen decades.”
Kara leaned back heavily, resting her hand on the smooth silk of the comforter. “Fair enough. I don’t know you. I don’t know her. All I know is if we don’t do this, it will be obvious to everyone that we broke some stupid, sacred law. Right?”
He nodded, then stared at Kara for a long moment. “Why do you care what happens to me? Even my own brethren turned me away when Lace cast me out.”
Images of her own childhood flitted past her eyes and she didn’t know which was worse—the scrawny girl in the filthy clothes stealing food to eat, the evenings she’d spent sitting on cold porch steps to avoid the fighting and anger inside y
et another foster home, or the cruel witches who had made her high school years a living hell. “I know what it’s like to be an outcast. Nobody deserves it.”
“Maybe some do.” He swallowed hard.
Her nostrils flared. “Yeah, maybe some do. But you’re not one of them.”
He turned his face to Kara. “You are truly an angel, my lady. But I haven’t got anything left in my body to give.”
Kara slid off the bed, pulled the covers back, then crawled underneath the heavy blanket. “Are you mine? Did you tell me I could have you if I wanted you?”
Jaxon peered at her like she was a poisoned apple. “I did.”
She crawled closer to him, ignoring the heat radiating from his body and the answering fire in her own. This was for him. A good deed. Nothing more.
He sucked in a breath when Kara trailed a hand down his naked chest and began massaging his hard abs. “You owe me nothing,” he said. “If the law is broken, it’s my fault for not pleasing my mistress. The blame doesn’t fall to you.”
“Shhh,” Kara whispered. Her hand crept lower, her soft palm bumping against the first stirring of his erection. She prayed he wouldn’t fight the pleasure. “Mmmm. You’re so warm.”
She took it slow, touching his sensitive skin with the tips of her fingers until she felt him start to harden, then she wrapped her fingers around the base of him and began to stroke. “I feel you coming alive in my hand. You’re so big, Jaxon. So hard.” It wasn’t difficult to infuse her words with desire—it was too damn easy.
He swallowed audibly and his large body relaxed into the mattress. “It’s been so long. She hasn’t wanted me in so long,” he whispered.
“Tonight you are wanted. I want to feel you in my hands. I want you to come for me.”
The sweat moistening Kara’s skin seeped through her thin dress, turning the peach to orange where it clung to her. If it wasn’t for thoughts of Julian still sleeping off his mating rage somewhere nearby, she could imagine taking Jaxon into her mouth and sampling his salty flavor. The juncture of her thighs flooded with her juices when she felt his penis harden completely and the thick veins of his shaft stand out from his skin. “Oh, you are magnificent.” She tightened her grip and increased her speed.
