Caressed by the Edge of Darkness (Rulers of Darkness Book 5)

by Amanda J. Greene

“Cool.” He glanced around. “I wonder if I could something to use to strap a dirt bike to it.”

  Gabriel didn’t have a chance to shout, “Scratch my paint and die,” because Dimitri had already grabbed him transported them across miles to the compound. They landed in his room. His

  Jordan’s screams greeted them. “Be quick. She needs you.” Dimitri disappeared.

  Gabreil ripped away his battle worn clothing, showered, and redressed in sweats and plane white shirt. He threw open the adjoining double doors and stalked to the bed.

  Scott’s grim face brightened a fraction. “My king. I’m glad you have returned safely.”

  “Have you given her something for the pain?”

  “Yes, her cries have lessened and the seizures are few now.” Scott gathered his medical bag and supplied. He headed for the exit and paused. “I’m happy for you both. I know no other couple more deserving of joy.”

  “Thank you for watching over her.”

  Scott nodded and left the king with his queen. Gabriel carefully lowered himself onto the edge of the mattress. Jordan thrashed, sweat beaded her brow. Her lips were chapped, her cheeks hollow and shadows of pain darkened her eyes.

  “Gabriel.”

  “I’m here, love. I’m here.”

  “I tried to get to you. I-I fought Wallin.”

  His chest welled with pride. “You’re my little scrapper.”

  “I w-was about to end him when y-you came.” Her voice cracked on another pained moan. “But it wasn’t you.” Her head thrashed side to side.

  “It was Dimitri.” He brushed the matted hair away from her cheeks. “We used the changeling potion.”

  Her screams were agony. They tore at him. Tormented him to madness.

  “I s-should’ve stayed with you.”

  He couldn’t help but chuckle. Even now, she was challenging him.

  Her teeth chattered. “Cold. M-make me warm.”

  He stripped her then himself, gathered to her against the heat of his body and burrowed under the sheets.

  “You’ll make it through this. You’ll be stronger.”

  God, he wished he could take the pain for her. Her internal organs were reshaping, her body contorted. Her muscles tearing then knitting back together. An endless nightmare. Her breaths came hard and fast.

  Jordan’s back arched and a raw scream ripped from her throat, he felt it as if it were his own. “It will be over soon, love. Focus on me. Focus on my voice.” He absorbed her every tremor as he held tightly and began to sing that old hymn.

  She came awake with a jolt, her body alive with energy, with power.

  Jordan shot up and was about to jump from the bed when Gabriel’s arm wrapped around her waist.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “It’s over. I want to—”

  “Lounge with your male,” he said pressing his lips to her bare shoulder. His tongue followed the curve of the circles there. “And rest.”

  She glanced to the side table and raised her raise at the clock. “I’ve been out for over twenty-four hours. I’m rested and anxious to greet our guests.”

  “They’ll wait.”

  Oh, she was tempted to let him convince her to stay in bed.

  “I haven’t been officially introduce to Dimitri and I would love to meet Kerstyn.”

  “Later, love.” He nuzzled her. “How are you feeling?”

  “Sublimely happy. You?”

  “Same.” He brushed her hair away from her neck. “Only, I keep thinking of that promise I made you.”

  She smiled. He was playing dirty. Well, she would too. “Yeah? Will you finally let me?”

  “After I come deep inside you, yes. Then you can torture me however you like with your mouth and those pretty little fangs.”

  Jordan purred. “Deal” She ran her tongue over her fangs. “They feel funny. Heavy.”

  His shaft swelled against her bottom and she rolled to her back to meet his eyes. “Their heavy from need.” He nuzzled her ear.

  She traced the circles of his brand. “Have I said how much I love that our passion has replaced that brand?” Her tongue swept over his chest, caressing the scar. His cock throbbed against her.

  “Thank you.” He pressed his lips to the tip of her nose.

  “For?”

  “Everything.”

  He rolled atop her, his taut body straining over hers. She spread her thighs wide and the bed and settled himself in the cradle of her body. The swollen head of his shaft gliding over her hot, wet folds. He lazily rocked his hips, teasing her until she moaned, “Put it in.”

  Gabriel’s lips curled with a sensual smile, revealing his sigh worth dimples. “As you wish, love.”

  He impaled her on his cock just as his fangs sliced into her throat. Both buried so deep. He drew her blood into him as he pounded into her. Hard, harsh, frantic thrusts. Jordan scored his back with her claws, overwhelmed by sensation, by emotion. She felt an erotic intimacy…so beautiful, so pure her eyes clouded with tears. Her body burned with white-hot heat. Her climax slammed into her. His name tore from her lips as she convulsed around his thrusting cock. He was strength and heat. He was power, protection—everything she wanted. Needed.

  He released his bite, his tongue swept over the pinpricks, healing them instantly. “Again, love. Make me feel you again.”

  Jordan smiled as he rolled to his back, taking her with him, never leaving the searing heat of her body. She rode him slow and sweet, hard and fast. Drawing out their pleasure until they became frantic for release.

  Gabriel wrapped an arm around her waist and drew he down, her breasts flattened against his chest. “Drink of me,” he grated. “Please, I need to feel your little fangs.”

  Jordan’s incisors sharpened. She traced them over his hammering pulse, then as if he’d drawn her into him, they sank deep into this muscle. His spicy blood hit her tongue and she was lost. Sucking on his vein, he slammed his sex into her again and again. His taste intoxicating. Sinful. Addictive. Her body clenched him so tight his thrusts stopped, his back bowed and as she screamed in ecstasy against his throat, he roared with rapture. His hot seed pumping into her, lashing her.

  She traced her tongue over the tiny marks in his neck, lapping up the trickle of blood that had slipped down to his collarbone. As she kissed her way down his torso, his cock swelled again. She caught his shaft with a tight grip, he wasn’t going to deny this time.

  “Ready to shout until you can’t anymore?” she teased the flicked her tongue over the crown.

  He cupped the back of her head and held her gaze. “Only if you’re ready to scream so loudly the entire city can hear you pleasure.”

  “We’ll see who caves first. My money is on you.”

  She took him deep into her mouth, the tips of her fangs teasing him and when she sucked, his head fell back, a ruthless vow tore from his lips, “Jordan, Until-never-do-us-part.”

  Epilogue / Preview

  Candles flickered, casting hard shadows over the ancient stone walls of the Shaw temple. A light mist clung to the air and the scent of rose oil tickled the senses.

  Silvie emerged from the darkness and entered the dimly lit cavern. The natural, mystical hot spring bubbled and gurgled in excitement as if it knew what was about to happen.

  Change. Everything was about to change.

  “You spared the vampire.” The Shaman’s voice echoed through the halls.

  She bowed her head. “Yes.”

  “Why did you go to him?”

  I love him, her heart cried, but she didn’t dare speak the words. Not to him, not to anyone besides Gannon. She had to tell him how she felt, he deserved to know before…

  “The future has become clouded,” the Shaman mused.

  Silvie kept her eyes downcast, her head bowed as he walked past her.

  “Would you know anything about that, my dear niece?”

  “Decisions have not been made, paths have not been chosen.”

  “By him
or by you?”

  She flinched. “I vow on all that is, your plans will be done.”

  “Good.” He stifled a harsh cough.

  She heard him enter the water. Tiny splashes sounded with every step until he settled within the shallows.

  “You are a gifted, talented, and powerful witch,” he wheezed. “But you mustn’t allow emotion to rule you. Your judgement must remain clear. Your purpose is your focus.”

  “Yes, uncle.”

  If only her tribe had listened to his sage advice over ten thousand years, she wouldn’t be standing her now waiting for the planets to align her life as she knew it to end. The ancient Shaw had been rash and fueled by hatred when their High Priestess, the Shaman’s daughter, had been found, murdered, drained of her blood. They cursed the human men that had greedily sought the immortality she’d carried in her veins and vampires had been brought into this world. There was nothing that could be done to undo the cure. It could only be amended.

  “It is almost time. I feel the universe shifting. Come.”

  Silvie stepped forward. Clutching the bone bowls to her chest, she knelt beside him. He hadn’t removed his gray robe when he’d entered he spring. He sat, his arms stretched wide over the edge of the pool, the water lapped at his chest.

  “Prepare,” he rasped before an uncontrollable cough seized him.

  She placed a bowl beneath each of his wrists and withdrew the enchanted blade from her robe. The sheath was plain, worn leather, the knife itself was crude and jagged.

  When he’s lungs finally calmed, he huffed, “It’s time.” He waved to the weapon. She didn’t hesitate to hand it to him.

  “Yes,” she sullenly replied.

  “Please, my niece, forget the vampire. For your sake and his, you must end your feelings now.”

  I’ve tried. I’m still trying.

  “I’ve waited eons for this moment,” he sighed. His head tilted back and stared up at the cavern’s ceiling as if he were gazing upon the heavens. “To finally be done with this world. To reincarnate no longer.” He drew the blade across one wrist then the other. Tiny droplets hit the water, changing it from a cool blue to a fiery red.

  She helped the Shaman find the bowls, his blood quickly pooled. “You know what you must do?” he asked, his voice low, weak.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve faith in you. I trust you will do all that is right and just.” His voice began to fade. “Take my magic and know that it is freely given. Cultivate my power and be a better leader than I.”

  Silvie sat silently as his blood overflowed the bowls. She knew the moment his soul released from his body. She felt the delicate warmth brush her cheek before disappearing.

  Taking in a deep, shuddered breath, her mind blank, she took up the bowl closest to her. With shaking hands and pounding heart, she raised it to her lips and began to drink.

  It was sweet, like pure liquid sugar, and powerful. With every swallow, she felt the magic rush into her. Her thoughts flashed and flickered as memories upon memories of the Shaman’s past lives bombarded her.

  She took up the second bowl and…she hesitated. Strength flooded her, tightened every cell, pain whipped through her like a firestorm, but instead of destroying it created.

  Her gut twisted, threatening to expel the blood. She couldn’t be weak. She wasn’t weak. She’d vowed to see to the Shaman’s commands and she would.

  Silvie brought the second bowl to her lips and drank. Deeply. She needed all of his knowledge, all of his strength to combine with her own.

  She collapsed, the bowl fell from her hands. Curling into a ball, she rocked back and forth. Her stomach contracted and she heaved. Blood dripped down her chin, seeped eyes and trickled from her ears. Images, memories, incantations, emotions, thought, none of her own all converged within her. The pain and endless cycle as her she struggled to process, to filter. Her mind breaking, her sanity a breath away from shattering, a single thought of her own surfaced. Gannon!

  ***

  Gabriel played the piano. The music soft, gentle, everything the vampire was not. Well, except for with his mate. Jordan was curled up on the chaise, notebook and pen in hand writing lyrics. The scene was…so damn domestic. Normal. Sweet.

  Gannon rubbed his chest as that familiar yearning stabbed him. How much he wanted a relationship like this of his own. Gabriel was truly a changed man. Jordan’s presence, her love was slowly healing his old wounds. So much so, Gabriel had given his chest full of horrors and asked that he bury the skulls somewhere unknown, claiming, “I’ve carried these memories for far too long. It’s time to let go of the reminder.”

  The clock struck and the steel shields began to lower over the windows. Another night gone. Another night closer to the end of the Sequester. Tomorrow the Shaw Priestesses would return to their tribe and hopefully Silvie would respond to his request for an audience.

  The king cast a heated glance to Jordan. She smiled, shook her head and kept working.

  “Have I inspired you?” Gabriel asked. “Are your writing a ballad to describe my handsome looks or my sexual prowess?”

  Jordan rolled her eyes. “I’m almost done.”

  Gannon stood and stretched his arms over his head. He wasn’t tired, but the sun was rising and he had nothing better to do than seek his bed. Besides, he would lay odds that Gabriel and Jordan were about to get carnal and he’d be tossed out on his ass any minute.

  “I believe that’s my cue. I’ll see y’all later.” As he left he called over his shoulder, “Practice safe sex. And, Gabriel, no means no.”

  Jordan laughed and her mate glowered. Oh, nothing lighted his spirits like giving his old friend a hard time. Well, besides seeing Silvie. Whenever she was around he soared.

  Damn it, he’d have to toss another two chips into the jar. No, three chips? He’d drop all the chips in his pocket in the jar for safe measure.

  He left Gabriel and Jordan’s suite, took the elevator down a level stalked to his room. The air trembled a moment then settled. His guard triggered, he pulled his Glock and cautiously entered his home. The scent of magic and blood was like a taking a baseball bat to the head. Staggered, he tried to focus on the source. He crept through the darkness, passed the kitchen, the living and dining room, and hesitated outside the bedroom. He shut down his senses, stilled his heart, his lungs, and tightened his grip on the gun.

  Gently easing the door open he stepped inside. On the floor, at the foot of his bed was a red velvet robe. It trembled and low, heart wrenching groans of pain whispered from it.

  “Silvie!”

  His body slammed into action. Holstering the weapon Gannon lunged forward and slid across the hardwood on his knees. Gathering her in his arms, he tore at the robe she’d wound tightly around herself. She…smelled different. Her magic felt different. She was stronger. She was—His eyes flashed black, his fangs cut his tongue as they forcefully punched from the sheaths. She was covered in blood.

  Instantly, his hands flew over her body checking for injuries. He found none.

  “Sweetheart, what’s happened?”

  Her black hair was streaked with shades of blue and purple and when her eyes opened his bit back a curse. White. They burned white as lightning. Blood smeared her heart shaped face, stained her ears, her neck.

  “Silvie, tell me what to do.”

  She reached up and stroked his face. “Gannon. I-I need you.”