Dark Redemption

by Aja James

  What the fuck was he?

  All of a sudden he was furious with her. This gullible, innocent, too-good female who trusted too easily.

  Who made him feel things he’d never felt before. Who relentlessly dug into the cold, hard core of him, finding the tattered bits of his raw, bleeding heart and making him aware of its existence, however he tried to deny it.

  “You can help me by giving me all of your blood,” he hissed into her face, crowding her with his much larger frame, blocking all light from the desk lamp with his broad back and shoulders, turning his hand deftly so that he held both her wrists in an unbreakable vise.

  “You can give me your life and your soul. That will make me well again. Are you so deluded in whatever fantasy you’ve built around the monster that I am that you’re willing to give me everything?”

  She stared unblinkingly back at him, unafraid and open. But he watched her clear blue eyes cloud with hurt at his words.

  And he felt that hurt a thousand times over serrating everything within his chest cavity, slashing his organs into bloody bits.

  “I can’t give you everything,” she answered his question seriously, holding his bleak, nihilistic stare.

  “I have Annie to look after. I’d look after you too, if you let me. I wish I had more to offer you. I wish I could give you everything you need. But I’d like to keep my life and soul, if you please. I’m very happy to be alive. To be with Annie, to have my friends, and now…to have met you, Eli.”

  Abruptly he released her, and clawed a shaking hand through his hair, pulling it back from his forehead in frustration.

  Some ironic part of him wanted to throw its head back and laugh until he was out of breath.

  It was like a juicy, adorable rabbit reasoning with a starving, half-crazed wolf to spare its life because the rabbit wanted to be the wolf’s friend.

  What surreal, fairy-tale universe did this woman come from?

  Someone should lock her in a fortified safe away from all the dangers and evils in the world.

  Away from the likes of him.

  And he wanted to do it. He wanted to protect her from himself.

  She was driving him insane!

  Probably sensing that he was on the verge of a psychotic breakdown, she took his hand again and gently led him to a corner of the loft behind partially closed French screens.

  As he stood there engaged in a violent inner battle, she pulled back the light quilt on top of the bed, pushed him down to sit, and went around the other side, crawling under the covers herself.

  “You can take my blood now, if you want, Eli,” she offered reasonably, lying on the bed and turning to face him.

  “But please don’t take too much. Think of me like…like I’m one of those Häagen-Dazs ice-cream tubs. You think you want to eat me all at once, but then you’d get a belly ache. If you eat me slowly over time, you still get the sugar rush, but without the belly ache. And I’ll last much longer that way. Isn’t that better? Hmm?”

  His eyes wide with disbelief and hysterical dark humor, he looked at her sincere, innocent expression and had to bite the inside of his cheek not to become unhinged.

  How the fuck had someone like Clara survived to adulthood?

  A bewildering, unanswerable question that only made him feel more protective of her. As if she were the last of her kind, and he was the only thing standing between her and total extinction.

  He doffed the beach towel and settled under the quilt, turning to face her as well.

  Immediately, trustingly, she offered her arm.

  But he would not be satisfied with feeding from her wrist now that he’d already fed at her throat.

  Inexorably, he pulled her towards him until she was flush against him, one of his thighs between her legs, his throbbing sex squeezed between their bellies.

  She gasped as her torso flattened lusciously against his, all her curvy bits going soft and pliant against the heat of his hard chest and stomach, and she obligingly wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “I won’t take too much,” he promised huskily, nuzzling her throat to prepare her.

  “Okay,” she sighed, melting against him. “I trust you.”

  “Hold onto me,” he instructed, winding one of her thighs over his hip. “Do whatever you want to increase your pleasure.”

  That was carte blanche if she ever heard one, Clara registered, but she’d already promised herself she wasn’t going to take advantage of him like she did before.

  She didn’t respond, but one of her hands left the back of his neck to stroke down his shoulder and back, massaging along the deep groove of his spine.

  With a hiss, he struck, sinking his fangs into the fragile vein in her throat.

  She jerked slightly, then relaxed against him, letting out a small moan of contentment.

  As he fed, sucking and swallowing slowly, much slower than the last time he’d taken her blood, following her instructions to savor her like a tub of Häagen-Dazs ice-cream, her hand trailed leisurely across the muscles of his back, making him…

  Feel things.

  Her touch felt good.

  It was as if the blood he took from her and into his body awakened the long deadened cells within his flesh, sensitizing every nerve ending in his skin, as if her blood made him come alive.

  Alive like Clara.

  It felt so good to be alive.

  His grip on her tightened ever so slightly, his hold more possessive and protective than predatory, and her hand wandered gently down the deep indentation at the end of his spine to his tail bone, her fingers lightly fluttering between the tight, muscular globes of his ass.

  He paused briefly in his sucking to swallow, breathing shallowly against her throat.

  Why was his heart accelerating so erratically? Why couldn’t his lungs inflate fast enough to draw air? Why did his pulse race and his body heat with a flush that started in the root of him up his torso, to spread across his chest and throat?

  What was this feeling she ignited within him?

  It was so foreign, so devastating, he was afraid of it. His whole body quivered with it.

  “Go ahead,” she murmured softly, her wandering hand coming around to glance across the taut skin of his hip, inward to tease his lower abdomen with just her fingertips, brushing almost accidentally against the ultra-sensitive crown of his sex.

  “Take more of me,” she encouraged, as her hand closed gently around the head of him and squeezed.

  He gasped at the indescribable sensation she evoked in him with her touch, something like pain but not quite. A feeling he wanted to chase until he captured it fully and wrestled it to the ground, to lose himself in it, drug himself with it.

  Mindlessly, he obeyed her, starting to draw upon her vein once more, this time more deeply, with an urgency he didn’t understand.

  Her hand tortured his cock slowly, squeezing him tightly, up and down, swerving her grip around the plump head to spread his moisture around.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, Eli knew he wasn’t a virgin. Others had done this to him before. Used his body for their pleasure. He couldn’t recall whether he’d ever felt anything with those females. Just as he’d long stopped being sensitive to pain, he also lacked the capacity to feel its opposite.

  But Clara wasn’t doing this for her own pleasure, he somehow knew. She was doing it to give him pleasure. As if giving him pleasure made her feel good vicariously.

  As if she cared what he felt.

  Cared about him.

  On a shuddering breath he disengaged from her throat, hastily licked the punctures closed and pulled away from her, turning onto his back, drawing two deep breaths as if he’d run a marathon.

  She tried to reach out to him, but he evaded her touch, turning again until his back was towards her.

  “Eli, let me—”

  “No.”

  He wouldn’t let her…do or say whatever it was she was about to.

  Gruffly he said, “Sleep now. I will
find a way to repay you.”

  “But—”

  “Sleep, Clara.”

  He heard her sigh and shuffle around until she found a comfortable position, which included surreptitiously scooting closer to him and inching one hand around his hip while she pressed her cheek lightly against his back.

  “Just let me hold you,” she murmured sleepily, exhausted from his feeding. “You smell heavenly…”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore her soft breaths behind him, all that silky, warm femininity, so innocently offered up to him like an endless feast. All he had to do was turn around and take her.

  He didn’t remember clearly when was the last time he’d felt pleasure. Perhaps he’d never truly experienced it. But he knew that he’d come close to something like pleasure, and it had cost him everything.

  Third millennium BC. Capital City of Akkad. The Ivory Palace.

  It was exactly twelve months before the Royal Princess Anunit’s twentieth name day when she finally summoned the Anatolian Prince’s son to the Palace to take his place as her Consort.

  Upon his arrival, he was addressed either as Lord Wind, or Enlil Naram-Anu. For all the years that he’d lived, he never knew what his real name was, or even if he had one.

  Perhaps his father had never bothered to give him a name of his own.

  Not that it mattered any more, for he was now the betrothed of the elder Princess and likely future Queen. He belonged to her now, and his moniker would reflect this possession.

  He’d brought one hundred shadow warriors with him, almost half of the elite fighting force his father had trained. It was a directive from the Dark Queen Ashlu, for over the past several years, there had been uprisings near the Akkadian borders, as well as an escalating internal struggle with discontented Pure slaves who had gathered in strength and numbers, challenging, for the first time in untold millennia, the authority of Dark rule.

  After making sure his men and their horses were settled accordingly, their needs provided for, he sought out the chambers of the Princess, for she had sent word she’d await his pleasure there.

  That was exactly what the missive he’d received upon arrival had said: I’ll await your pleasure in my chambers. Come to me when you’re ready.

  It was simply courtly manners, he knew, but he also learned by now that the Princess Anunit never used words lightly.

  Well, soon enough she’d discover that “awaiting his pleasure” would take a very long time, for he was incapable of feeling any. But he’d perform his duty towards her as his role required. He would be the stud she used however she pleased.

  Better to get his deflowering over with.

  He knocked upon her doors, and the heavy wood opened of its own accord.

  They shut behind him just as smoothly, though he knew that these type of doors required a strong male on each side to pull apart and close.

  “It’s my telekinesis,” the Princess’s voice traveled to him from a few yards away, so large was her chamber that her voice seemed to echo.

  “I can move objects at least five times my size and weight. Perhaps more, but I haven’t really tested myself before.”

  He finally located her lying in an S curve on her gigantic four-poster platform bed, liked a coiled snake.

  A very beautiful snake.

  She was entirely nude, her skin glistening with beads of moisture, as if she’d just come from the bath halls.

  His eyes flicked over her body indifferently.

  He’d seen countless nude females before. Often, since he first began to be sexually aware, such sights would raise his cock quite effortlessly. But that was merely a physical reaction, eased quickly and effectively enough by his left and right fists.

  Since those early days when he was still learning how to control his body’s reactions to stimulation other than pain, he’d learned how to suppress all feelings and sensations totally. Now, upon the sight of an aroused, full-blooded female, his cock wouldn’t stand unless he allowed it to.

  “Your Highness,” he bowed dutifully in greeting.

  And was silent.

  A smile tipped her voluptuous lips as she tilted her head to regard him, thoroughly perusing him from head to toe.

  “Go ahead and say what you’re thinking,” she invited. “You should always speak your mind with me. We will be Bonded by blood for eternity, after all.”

  He hesitated briefly, then said, “If I had a Gift like yours, I would stretch it to its limits and beyond.”

  Her smile spread wider, and she patted the bed right next to her, motioning for him to join her.

  As he did so, she immediately came astride him and pushed him back against the tall bejeweled headboard.

  “That’s one of the reasons I like you so well, Enlil Naram-Anu,” she murmured, “You are arguably the most powerful warrior in all the land, yet you never stop reaching for more. You crave power just as I do.”

  That wasn’t entirely true, he thought to himself. He didn’t crave power at all. He simply wanted to test himself, push himself, because otherwise, what was the purpose of living?

  Dark Ones did not age. They did not fall ill. And they healed so rapidly, there were only a few ways to end their lives.

  Without death, what gave life meaning?

  His own certainly hadn’t been remarkable, other than his ability to turn to wind and air, surpassing all of his kinsmen, including the Prince, in the shadow arts.

  She deftly relieved him of his shirt and was eagerly pulling off his trousers. Soon, he was as naked as she, and her hands were everywhere upon him.

  He willed his cock to rise to the occasion, and the column of flesh obediently saluted her like a well-trained soldier.

  She was exceedingly pleased with his body and used it well in the nights and days ahead. She kept him with her until she’d marked every inch of him for her own. And even then, she was ravenous for more of him.

  He was exhausted and drained by the time she finally went back to her routine duties, the same sort of physical fatigue he experienced after long, drawn-out battles over particularly difficult military campaigns on behalf of the Akkadian empire.

  One muscle in his body got a disproportionate workout over all others, but it was simply a muscle, nothing special.

  He did feel a vague sort of satisfaction for fulfilling his duty by the Princess, however. She’d been zealous and generous with her praise of him, how he made her feel, the pleasure he gave her.

  No one had ever praised him before.

  It felt…it felt good.

  He liked being wanted and needed. He seemed to make her happy, just by being with her physically.

  It felt good to make someone happy, he realized.

  And she talked to him. Most often she didn’t require a response, and he didn’t offer any, but she didn’t seem to mind his silence. She kept talking to him anyway, and he listened to her carefully.

  He realized that the Princess Anunit was a shrewdly intelligent female, ambitious and proud, full of ideas on how to make the Dark empire even more influential, spread its borders even farther.

  She talked of crossing the seas to conquer new lands and new peoples, instituting new laws to better enforce their rule. She knew every chapter of their untold millennia of history as if she’d memorized the entire Ecliptic Scrolls in her head.

  She also showed how much she respected and admired the Queen, even though she sometimes disagreed with her politics. She lit up from the inside out whenever she spoke of her younger twin sister, Princess Ishtar.

  He liked hearing her talk about her sister the most.

  His betrothed was, in short, an amazing, beautiful, powerful female full of vision and purpose.

  Full of life.

  The longer he spent time with her, the more he esteemed her. And after a while, their couplings started to mean more to him, until it was his mission in life to please her, and her touch began to please him in return.

  Though he couldn’t put his emoti
ons into words, he knew that he’d follow her faithfully.

  Even when she led him astray.

  .Chapter Seven

  “Privet, Krasivi.”

  Dalair eyed the tall brunette who slipped into the seat beside his at the bar, giving him a brief, appreciative smile before ordering double shots of Pincer Vodka from the bartender.

  “I don’t speak Russian,” he said, taking a swallow of his beer.

  He didn’t particularly enjoy alcohol, given that the therapeutic effects the drink supposedly had on humans didn’t work on Pure Ones, and alcohol without the effects simply tasted bitter or sour, making him thirstier after imbibing than before.

  But it seemed the thing to do in a bar late at night, if one wanted to blend in with the crowd.

  Not that his attempt at blending in had been successful if one considered how many looks and approaches he’d been getting from Slavic women since entering the establishment.

  One thing he learned about Russians during his first-ever trip to the region—people were direct and forward; they told you up front exactly what they wanted, no beating around the bush.

  After the fourth approach in the space of half an hour, Dalair had gotten pretty direct too, in his response to the blatant invitations to rock his world.

  And contrary to misconceptions about the Cardinal Rule of the Pure Ones, he didn’t refuse because he feared having sex with the wrong woman would lead him to a slow, painful death within thirty days. A Pure One only suffered such a fate if they loved the person in question while the object of their love did not return the sentiment.

  There was zero possibility of Dalair falling instantly in love with any of these women. Therefore, he had no fear of invoking and breaking the Cardinal Rule.

  No, the reason he turned the women down was much simpler: he just wasn’t interested.

  “I said, ‘hello beautiful,’” the female explained, the smile still evident on her lips. “Or rather, ‘hello, handsome.’ You must be at least a thousand years old, Paladin, haven’t you learned the Russian language?”