She shook her hair out of her eyes and caught Grimm watching her intently. “What?” Her voice was a bit shriller than she would have liked. She was skirting the edge of her control, such as it was.
He looked as if he were about to say one thing, but settled instead on repeating tersely, “We should leave now, Raine.”
Raine shrugged, no longer the least bit interested in watching the sun come up. Grimm offered his hand and she showed him her fists of earth.
“You will have no need of that,” he said gently.
She looked at her grimy hands. She got the impression that he wouldn’t force her to drop it, but he was interested nonetheless in what she would choose to do. “It’s…comforting to me.” Was that the right word for so complicated a relationship she felt with…dirt. Oh dear, she was spiraling out of control and she knew it, but she couldn’t stop. “It’s comforting,” she repeated.
“Yes, I know.” He said it without judgment of her strange new eccentricity. He was completely unfazed, while she was unraveling one cell at a time. As she’d known he would, he let her make the decision, patiently waiting, hand still outstretched in offering. Raine turned her hands out, watching them as if they belonged to someone else, opened her palms and let the dirt fall back to the ground.
Almost immediately the chorus swarmed back into her head, but she’d expected its arrival this time and with only a small wince, she was able to muffle its hideous volume, turn some invisible switch inside her head from a skull-splitting eleven to a more bearable four. She didn’t bother trying to dust her palms off, and grabbed Grimm’s hand as if it were a lifeline. Sheesh, perhaps it was, because the moment she touched him the polyphony ceased completely once again—and this time when he Traveled, the world dissolved away like sugar in warm water.
Darkness swallowed her. Embraced her. Or was that Grimm? The black was as impenetrable as the folds of his cloak. And then she was through, and the other side was…brilliantly ablaze. “Oh,” she softly exclaimed as Grimm’s hand let go and she felt suspended in space and time for the longest instant before falling safely into the blinding landscape waiting for her. Her heart was in her throat, her hand shielding her dazed eyes.
“Give your eyes time to adjust.”
She blinked away tears to see a thousand flickering flames, atop a thousand burning candles all tucked away into a thousand nooks and crannies in a vast quartz chamber. The glittering display was enough to rob her of words for several long moments. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and she had no words to convey her wonder. It was magnificent.
An eternity could have passed. She would never have known it. Or cared. To die in the presence of such beauty would have been more than most people dared dream or hope for themselves, Raine included. Grimm moved, breaking some of the spell that held her. His cloak moved in a manner most strange, counter to the motion he made with his tall, lean body. It made a long, sharp shadow in the glittering room. He brushed an errant tear from a corner of her still-leaking eyes and brought it to his mouth. He sipped it from his fingertip, his face an inscrutable mask.
“What is this place?” She expected him to tell her it was a shrine or some holy place. What he told her stunned her anew.
“Home.” He offered her a shrug. “A room in progress.” He pushed back his cowl, his eyes oddly intent above the smile that rode his lips. “Perhaps you would like to have a hand in completing it.”
Raine blinked in confusion. “What?”
“Ah, too soon.” His smile faltered. His hand darted out. Taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he turned her head this way and that. He studied her carefully with grave eyes in the flickering. “Yes, I think so. Too soon, too early yet.”
Raine swatted his hand away. “Stop that. What are you blathering about?”
“Nothing.” Cold. His voice had gone so cold, even the light from the candles seemed to emanate the chill.
Suddenly Raine was more tired than she could ever remember being. She put a grimy hand to her head. “Grimm, I don’t even know how to respond—”
“Of course you don’t. Forget I said anything. Follow me, please, if you would.” He turned and with a flourish of his cloak, was gone through an opening in the wall.
Speechless at this strange change of mood, this mercurial turn of the evening—now early morning—which had already been full of twists and turns too many and varied for her to count, Raine took one last lingering look around at the brilliance of the chamber. Had he been offering her a place here, in his home? Is that what this was about? How strange.
How thrilling.
But strange all the same. She hardly knew the guy.
The floor was already polished and smooth beneath her feet so she could see her reflection hovering there, nebulous in the smoke-dark crystal. A twinge of something like fear snaked up her spine when she caught sight of her ghostly outline and she quickly looked away. Not willing to stay there alone, no matter how beautiful the chamber was, Raine hurried to follow him and found him in the next room waiting silently. Brooding.
“Grimm, this has been a heck of a night.”
“Indeed.” Everything about him was distant; it was explicit in his stance—so rigid and tall—and his cool, impersonal tone.
“Yeah. Um…” Raine’s stomach tightened. “So, you got a place where I can wash it off?”
His hair caught the dim light of the room in shocking shades of crimson. Raine thought of blood and her stomach rolled. She put her hands over her abdomen and breathed through her teeth. Grimm turned and eyed her. He seemed to read something on her face—probably her need to hurl—and his features softened. “This way.”
He led her to a wonder she would have never expected to find in a place like this—a modern bathroom. Granted, every appliance was crafted from sparkling quartz instead of porcelain, but whatever, it all worked perfectly well. And after some embarrassing moments during which Grimm insisted on holding Raine’s uncomfortably long hair away from her face while she heaved up whatever food she had last consumed—there was no way to tell what it was either by her memory or from what remained—and a few more minutes in which he’d left her alone to wash up, Raine finally felt a little more like her old self. She finished cleaning her teeth and swished her mouth out with a delightfully crisp wash from a little fluted goblet—it smelled like peppermint and candied apples—and spat delicately in the sink before looking for a light switch to turn off the washroom light.
She looked up at the lights and frowned.
“This is weird,” she said, entering the sitting room where Grimm waited, his long form draped across an intricately carved divan with plush, embroidered cushions. Heavens above, he was sexy, in all his brooding darkness. His legs went on forever…and ever. Even his feet were gorgeous.
No, she wouldn’t think about that.
She pointed above them, to the amber globes of light. “The lights look like they’re hovering.”
“They are.”
When he didn’t elucidate further, she pursed her lips and frowned. “Oookay.” She squinted at him, trying and failing to read his thoughts on the smooth lines of his face. He was so savage and strange; it was hard to know anything of what might be going on in his head. But there was a charge in the air, palpable electricity that made the hairs on her arms stand up, and she wondered at it, her nipples going hard under her clothes.
“What are you, exactly?” she blurted out at once. “Not that it matters,” she rushed to assure him, in case he needed reassurance. “I don’t even know what I am anymore.” She looked down at her hands—hands that had killed this night—so that she didn’t have to meet his eyes.
“I am…” He gave a long-suffering sigh. “I am no danger to you, woman. That is all you need ever remember. And you will remember it.”
Raine’s heart bled an aching tear for the weariness in his tone. That someone so stoic and so undeniably brave should be so alone in a place as beautiful as this seemed shameful.
“I’m sorry.” She wasn’t apologizing for her question, only for how her asking it had made him feel.
Looking at him now, his long, lean frame relaxed in this opulently appointed room, with its lush textures and colors starkly contrasted by the sharp angles and razor-fine edges of the glass and quartz shards that hung from the still-virgin, uncut dome of the geode ceiling, he seemed more a work of art than a living, breathing being. His skin was bronzed and flawless, his frame strong and perfectly proportioned so that he seemed hewn from an artisan’s chisel. His hair was so glossy and smooth it could have graced the cover of a fashion magazine, touched and retouched with digital tools to artificially enhance every nuance of color and light, and suddenly Raine wanted to touch it. To feel those strands between her fingers, to know for certain that they were real and not some artifice.
Her feet moved until she was standing right in front of him. Raine saw her hands as if they belonged to somebody else, saw their paleness against the darkness of him. Her fingers slid into the cool silk that was his hair like a woman already seduced, and wasn’t she really—seduced by his perfection and his unexpected vulnerability? She knelt by him and looked up, toying with an unbelievably soft lock of his hair. “How is it that I suspect you might be the most important man in my life, but I know almost nothing about you?”
“I am not a man.” He watched her, the bright, bottomless vortexes of his eyes delving into the heart of her. Stripping her of all defenses. One by one, her questions fell away. For once, nothing else mattered. He was here with her. She could feel him, see him, smell him. That was all she needed. That was the only truth that made any sense.
“I feel like all of this is familiar, but it’s strange and new at the same time,” she admitted with a frown.
“I know.”
She believed he did know. “I want to remember.” His gaze was pulling her, luring her. She was dizzy from it. She was afraid of falling too deeply. “But I’m scared to remember at the same time.”
He gently took her head in his hands, his palms on either side of her temples. She felt a sudden chill flit through her. “You have endured so much already, to ask you to endure more is unforgivable, yet I wish you to be brave. Everything you need to know is right here between my hands. We simply have to coax the memories to the surface.”
“Simply?” she scoffed.
“You have already far surpassed any of my wildest expectations. In a few short hours you have remembered the crash, the Daemons…me. And the power you used to kill those Daemons tonight,” he marveled, his fingertips kneading gently in her hair. “Raine, that you could summon such a skill so soon is unprecedented. Never before…”
She shot to her feet. “You’ve dealt with a lot of amnesiacs then, have you?” Sarcasm was acid on her tongue, dashing her languid mood so suddenly she felt wretched. She felt her own mania, the mercurial changes of her mood like a whip lashing at her soul, but there was no controlling it. Raine licked her dry lips and imagined them blistering from the sting. “Don’t act like you know what you’re doing, like I’m going to get past whatever is wrong with me, because we both know I’m seriously messed up—”
He stood. His hands fell on her shoulders and tightened like steel traps, silencing her. “You are the one making assumptions, Raine. I am the omniscient one right now, please bear that in mind and refrain from giving in to any negative notions you may have. We have only just begun our quest. It is too early for you to descend into pessimism.” He offered her a half smile, removing some of the sting from his terse admonition.
Raine tore from his grasp and stomped away. He followed her relentlessly, a looming shadow that descended on her like a weight. She whirled to face him and he caught her, spun, and they tripped, falling to the floor. He took the brunt of their descent, letting her land on top of him, and something about his instinctive, selfless gallantry—even as they quarreled—stripped her nerves bare and she turned to a tempest of fists and teeth in his arms. It wasn’t that she was angry at him or that she wanted to hurt him—she was angry at the world and she was the one hurting, so Raine wanted the world to ache with her. It didn’t satisfy her or make her feel any better, but once Raine started fighting she found that she couldn’t stop.
And with the heat of her ire, the voice of the Horde rose in her mind.
Kill him…
He stole you from us, Little Mother…
Raine hit him so hard her knuckles cracked.
Murderer…hunter…Shikar thief…
Grimm had grabbed her wrists, more she thought to protect her from herself than to save him from any pain. The cacophony rose inside her head, an ocean of noise that drowned her beneath its tide of hot, bitter rage. Anger that was not her own, that existed outside her, yet stabbed into her until it seared itself through the tissues of her organs and became her. Raine threw back her head and howled, her voice one with those cries, creating a musical tableau that belonged in the deepest, darkest pits of hell, where only the devil might hear.
But Grimm could hear, and he didn’t flee. He held her. He held her so tightly she could feel him, past the rage, past the noise. And she wanted to feel more of him. It seemed to her that she’d been alone for longer than the hours she could account for since waking. It felt as if she had been alone all her life and now he was here, Grimm was with her, and she had waited for him for so long. And she was mucking it up, ruining everything, fighting him when she should be kissing him.
And why not?
Yes. Turn the rage into lust. She had no quarrel with Grimm. Only with herself and whatever demons possessed her. This man, this perfect creature who had been so patient with her did not deserve such torment. Had she not moments ago known an overwhelming tenderness for him?
Her heart ached for him and bled with shame for what she’d done. Raine swallowed her scream down deep and fell still in his arms.
Shaking from her struggles, both physical and mental, she moved gently now over him. Breathing in gasps, she straddled him, his glinting eyes watching her with a calm Raine found both eerie and oddly reassuring. It seemed he understood her better than she understood herself. She rested her knees on either side of his waist—he was wider than he looked, all lean, hard muscle stretching her thighs wide—and she bent over him, the pale curtain of her hair a filter of gold that bathed them in soft light. His breath puffed over her mouth, a warm air flavored with indescribable spices both sweet and hot, carrying the scent of him to her like an invitation.
When her lips touched his after what seemed like an eternity of anticipation…Raine knew she was ruined for any lips but Grimm’s for the rest of her waking life.
Chapter Seven
The kiss devastated.
Not because it was savage.
Because it was tender.
Yet still there was an undercurrent luring her deeper. It was like falling headlong into light. Into warmth. It was safe at first but then it changed, became more exciting, almost dangerous, desire blooming, moving through her like fire, as if it had been a bank of coals smoldering there inside her all along, only waiting to be fanned into flame once again. Grimm’s hands tightened on her wrists, then slid up her arms, his fingers caressing her through her sleeves as if the cloth wasn’t even there. The touch zinged up through her and she gasped, arching into him reflexively, her hips grinding over his. He groaned against her lips and she tasted his breath.
His hips rose to meet hers, and she rode him like a wave. He was like a bull between her legs and for a second their eyes met…
Time folded in on itself, and Raine didn’t know if she was having a flashback or a flash-forward. More like a fantasy perhaps. An impossible fantasy.
It was impossible because it involved him and her in a room she had never seen, the perfume of sex heady in the air like attar of roses and his cock…oh dear sweet heaven…his cock was free out of the confines of his drawstring trousers and it was hard in his hand. It was magnificently thick and long—impossibly thick and long, beyond por
n star thick and long. She couldn’t get past that, how ridiculously big he was. Startlingly, frighteningly so. It was downright amazing, mind-boggling. His hand didn’t even reach around his own girth—almost, but not quite.
Thirteen inches long. Two and a half inches wide, or roughly eight inches around—those were Grimm’s exact measurements. Raine knew this for a fact because… She couldn’t remember how she knew. But his cock, when fully erect, was thirteen inches of solid, throbbing heat and eight inches of velvet, textured girth.
Oh…dear sweet…wow.
There was no way she could take him, no way any woman could without leaving his bed forever changed, but what woman wouldn’t want to at least try? Raine knew this was pure, insane fantasy. None of this was real—she couldn’t be here, Grimm couldn’t be here and he certainly couldn’t be so…big. Enormously, fantastically huge.
But it was vividly real. Grimm’s eyes were heavy, his lashes so thick she could barely see the twinkling of stars through them where his eyes peeked through. Through her… He couldn’t see her.
Raine glanced behind her and saw two naked figures on a bed. A man and a woman were there, locked in coitus and glorying in raw ecstasy amid a tangle of long hair, sweat-dampened skin and rumpled bed linens. Their cries were silent pleas from parted lips, their faces were studies in rapture. Raine darted looks between them and Grimm, dazed by the carnal tableau.
Grimm’s hand moved over his stunning erection.
Raine’s eyes traced every inch of him. Her belly had sunk heavily into her pelvis, her breath deep and slow, panting. She ached. The scent of sex made her dizzy and she sucked her lips into her mouth, imagining that she was sucking on Grimm’s swollen flesh instead. Not that she could fit much of him in her mouth, but she could take enough to make him appreciate her mouth over his hand.
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