by Billi Jean
“I was trying to see you. I think…” That you’ve been marred by evil. Could she tell him that? This fiercely proud and honourable male? His scar caught her eye then and she stilled, her breath caught in her throat as a thought took root and grew in certainty.
Of course.
She grabbed his strong hand in both of hers and shook them. “Torque. The blade. It was poisoned, I know it was, that’s what is harming you, why you blew your top yesterday, why—”
“Whoa, wait a second, sweetheart, let a guy wake up. What are you saying?” he pulled a hand free to rub his face and sat up straighter.
She moved quickly and hugged his neck, pressing her body into his, and poured love into their bond. He sucked in a breath. Cautiously he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her, too tightly, but she didn’t care. She poured how much she loved him in through their bond and told him, “I love you so much, Torque. Let me heal you. Let me do this. For us.”
A muffled sound came from him, then love swamped her as he silently allowed her to sense his deepest emotions. He loved her. So completely, it was frightening.
“Let me do this, Torque. Let me try. The wound is the key. I think even…” She paused and pulled back to cup his strong jaw. His silver eyes were wet and shining with unshed tears. “The witch was part of it. They wanted the sword wound to turn you. When that didn’t work, the witch put a curse on you. After her curse, didn’t you start to treat women, think of women differently? Don’t you see? The smallest drop can topple the biggest stone. They wanted to make you evil bit by bit.”
Torque blinked rapidly and shook his head, clearly confused. “Beauty, what are you saying? No one knew of my need for sex.” He trailed off as his intelligent eyes narrowed. He was thinking so fast now she wanted to kiss him. Excitement raced through him, then slowly a deep, slow-burning anger. “Sonofabitch. Those fucking evil sons of—”
She covered his warm mouth with both of her hands and smiled. “Yes, dear, they were and are. But goodness, you swear like a sailor,” she scolded.
His anger slowed to that simmer she knew meant he was ready to listen again. She sensed the anger—his quick explosive temper—was part of the curse. The poison was working on him in ways she feared he’d not like. Ways she knew he’d not like.
“Let me see you. Heal this. I can.”
He pulled her hands off his mouth and sat up. “Beauty, first of all, how do you know this?”
“I just do.”
He snorted at that and shook his head.
“Do you trust me?” she countered, so excited she was nearly squirming with it. She needed to do this. Needed to heal him. The need felt like a pressure now, pushing down on her and demanding she do something. “I know. I just know, okay? But I need to do this. It… Torque, let me do this or I will never go down on you again,” she warned, using his favourite sexual act to force his hand.
“You’re my favourite, not what you do with that mouth of yours. You. Making you happy. Hearing you cry out my name. That’s my favourite. Your mouth is just icing, sweetheart.”
“Oh, Torque, I love you. I need this…it hurts, I need it so badly.”
She practically shoved all her excitement and anxiousness at him and watched him closely, only relaxing when his tight shoulders relaxed and he sat back against the headboard with a big sigh.
“You’re my bonded. I will do anything for you. For you,” he added, pulling her close and kissing her deeply.
“Will this harm you?”
“No, silly, now stop and let me heal you so we can make love again.”
“Beauty, I love you so damned much.” Regret, pain, and shame filled him in equal measures with lust and love.
She pulled from his kiss and cupped his strong jaw. “Torque, don’t. It isn’t you. I knew it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t. I should have thought of this. You’re too pure. Too honourable and courageous to lose your temper that way.”
Surprise radiated through their bond.
“Stop stalling and let me do this. I want to do this. I need to, Torque,” she said when he merely squeezed her closer. With a deep sigh, he released her and met her eyes.
“Just don’t harm yourself. If I sense it…” he warned, his body tense with aggression.
“Of course,” she agreed quickly, pressing his hard chest back until he finally allowed her to settle him against the headboard again. His erection was huge, swollen, and jutting up past his navel, thick and needy, but he would simply have to wait. “And you need to calm that down.”
His soft smile was all male and sent shivers down her spine. “Beauty.” He breathed her name, gripping himself with a fist and making wetness flood her core so quickly she bit her lip to stop herself from moaning in pleasure. She loved it when he did that. It was so naughty and purely wicked to watch him stroke himself.
“I need you.”
“You do not!” She glared at him until he stopped with a grumble. He was trying to distract her. And they both knew it.
She reached down and settled the blankets on his hips, giving him another look when the covers shifted.
Not waiting on him to change his mind, she slipped his hand in both of hers. Immediately she slowed her breathing, closed her eyes to block out his intense regard, and focused on him.
Instantly she felt his aura, the golden glow that was her mate, warm, solid, dependable. Driving her senses deeper she felt a pull towards something that didn’t belong to him, something separate, alien.
Drawing in a breath, she pushed harder, and felt it. Evil. Very much so. A subtle, slimy darkness attempting to pull her in. The stain invaded him deeply, thoroughly tangling up with who and what made up Torque. Worse, the dark inky evil had insinuated itself into his inner being, changing subtly, oh so subtly, his behaviour. Making him more aggressive, feeding his anger when he felt a small spark, so the spark became a flame, a blaze, a bonfire of rage he struggled to control. And he struggled. It was there as well. All around the evil a darker orange circled—a sign that his aura fought the alien influence in a conscious or unconscious attempt to distil the rages.
Tenderly stroking his hand, she edged closer to his warm body and pushed her vision deeper at the same time. Somehow, she knew she needed to merge with him as deeply as possible so she could heal him completely.
He stiffened. Because she’d linked them so deeply, he became aware of what lurked inside him. Anger, bright and red, flared and the orange glowed around the black, outlining it with darker fire bright orange. She used the colour to hedge it in, to follow the lines of corruption back to the source.
A heat built inside her. Pressure unlike anything she could remember feeling grew steadily until it was painful. When it became unbearable she let go trying to figure it out, and let it build higher, not understanding her own power, but knowing somehow what she was doing was working. She guided her ability to all the places evil had dug in, tainting Torque, until the pressure eased out of her, tingled along her spine, her skin, her entire body. The more she worked, the more she felt the fire within her grow. Suddenly it blossomed and encapsulated Torque.
His hand tightened in hers so hard she winced. She blinked her eyes open with a gasp. Torque jack-knifed up off the bed. His heels and shoulders dug into the mattress and every muscle outlined in sweat.
Breathing became secondary to the pressure to push harder against the darkness. She needed to ease him and erase the blackness like nothing else she’d even known. The need grew until, with a subtle shift, she could sense the mire of evil heading back to the source, back to the sword wound as if she drew it back where it belonged. But at what price?
Torque panted in pain, his body so hard he shuddered and groaned in agony.
Abruptly she felt a pop of pressure exploding outward. Dropping one hand from his grip, she brought her hand down on his warm chest, right where the darkest part of his wound marred his lovely skin. Instantly she felt the evil try and slick up her arm, trying to enter her body as it left his. Fighti
ng that, horrified by the feel of such nastiness touching her, she closed it off, gathering it up and with all her might, tugged it from her mate and wrapped the evil in a binding.
Exhaustion had her sagging with relief, but she managed to gather the mass up until not even a speck of evil remained behind. Disgust warred with relief. She shuddered at the feel of it and threw it hard without thinking. The darkness flooded the room, growing in size like a huge black hole. Before panic could overtake her, her palm erupted with a silver fire, hot but not hot as it danced along her open hand.
“Ignite it, Beauty!”
She had to grit her teeth as the pressure grew uncomfortable. She focused on the moving mass of evil and hit the inky glob with the light from her palm.
Breathless and amazed, she watched until her eyes watered from the brightness. The radiance shone for an instant more, as if a star had landed in their room, then the light and the evil blinked out, leaving them in darkness.
The breath she’d been holding burst from her. Her head spun. Pinpricks of light danced in front of her eyes and darkness hovered, soft and soothing like a blanket. Strong, warm arms curled her up close to more heat. Torque’s face came into view against the backdrop of spinning shadows.
“Don’t do it. Don’t you dare faint, Beauty.”
“Torque.”
His face swam in her vision. Love poured from him. He was breathless, covered in sweat, and looked anxious. Fearful. Would she always make him fear so?
“Don’t do it. Beauty.” He shook her gently and the blackness hovered closer. “I swear I won’t have sex with you for a week if you faint.”
Her arm weighed a ton, but she lifted her hand to touch his dear face. “You need to earn those rewards first, babe,” she managed, then let the darkness swallow her up, while her mate cursed like a sailor, oddly sounding like he was choking back tears.
Torque? Crying? She struggled to see him, but a warm, content feeling filled her and spilled out to him. She hoped.
Chapter Nineteen
Beauty’s beautiful pale face looked grey in the dim light of their room. But she radiated such peace, such contentment Torque could barely swallow. Damn tears clogged his throat. She scared the shit out of him. She’d come in his life like a ray of light. She was his light. And she’d cured him. Of a curse he didn’t even know existed. And she’d found it.
The evil she’d taken out of him had been deep. Deep and so insinuated into his being he shuddered at how much it had taken over. Such peace settled over him now, stillness in his soul, he had to wonder why he hadn’t recognised the evil within him before.
Pulling her closer, he bent his head to press warm kisses over her face. So soft, so sweet, so pure. His Beauty.
She’d begun his healing the first day he’d bought her to the hunting lodge. He sensed that now. The soft light of her soul had touched his and begun healing even then. Aiding his struggle. And hell, what a struggle. How had he not felt that? Now that it was gone, he could breathe. Actually take a deep breath and not feel that anxious, worried pressure he’d grown accustomed to since…too long.
He pressed kisses to her forehead, loving the feel of her hair on his face as he tried to remember when he’d not felt anxious. His brothers’ deaths. The battle he’d earned this wound.
Of course.
He’d been so overwhelmed with pain and loss he’d simply not noticed that it never went away. Never left him.
And his rages? He’d always had a temper, but not over everything. Not at women. Never at someone he loved.
And he’d been angry with her before yesterday too. The night of the fight came back with more clarity now. He’d so easily jumped to the answer Jaxon had given him—Beauty must be spelling him—that he’d never even thought she might be his bonded.
Bonded. The one person in the entire world who could create a life with him. Share a life with him. But he’d been so certain, so sure she had to be trying to trap him or spell him that he’d not looked deeper.
He was lucky she’d ever forgiven him for that.
A slow anger, not the rage he’d felt before, but a solid, normal anger at the way the evil had marred his relationship with her settled over him. The evil had almost cost him the one true person who completed him. Hell, she didn’t complete him. Without her, there was no him.
But he needed his stubborn sweet-smelling woman to wake up. Needed her eyes open and her soft gaze on him. And under him. He was raging hard. His magic demanded sex. His body pulsed with it. And his soul needed to be as close to her as possible. To join with her in the most elemental of ways.
“Torque, I can sense your thoughts,” Beauty murmured or grumbled. She was so adorable. “I’m hungry.”
“I hope you mean for me,” he told her, a lightness filling him as her stormy eyes opened. Deep green pools of mischief met his and his erection swelled painfully enough for him to squirm. His balls felt on fire he was that aroused. And it was different, somehow better?
“I thought I got no sex for a week, if I fainted?” she countered with a soft, knowing smile on her pink lips. She’d put on one of his T-shirts tonight after they’d made love, complaining that he took all the covers and she needed to stay warm. He loved it. Loved to see her wear his clothes. At least until he could get the damn things off her.
“I decided to give you points for freeing me of such evil,” he teased her, manoeuvring her under him with ease. “That is if you’re not too tired,” he added, knowing she was wet and hot for him already. Her eyes were the key. So dark when she was aroused, then lighter grey, silver when she was close to coming. And her heavenly scent. It called to every animal instinct in him, hardening him further.
“Mmmm, well, that is true. I did free you from evil.” Running her soft hands up his back, then back down to his ass, she stroked him there, making him groan. “You have such a nice ass, my cave man.”
“Cave man?”
“You are kinda stuck in the Dark Ages.”
“I love you, brat.” He pressed her thighs open, nudging her wet silky pussy with his swollen dick. He needed inside, now. He reached down and ripped his T-shirt off her, loving when she squealed. As soon as her breasts came into view, he filled his mouth with one tight nipple and rolled it against his tongue, sucking and licking her until she was breathless.
She tightened her hands in his hair, adding a sliver of pain to the pleasure of loving her.
“Torque, oh sweet Danu, that is so hot.”
The way she rolled the word so made him hotter. When he could pull himself from her lush bosom, her eyes flooded with lust. For him. Underneath him, she wiggled trying to get him to take her.
He didn’t need a written invitation. He parted her thighs just a bit more and thrust inside. She clenched around him, so tight he had to work for every inch until with one long amazing stroke he slid balls deep.
Heaven. Pure, simple heaven. “Not goin’ a last.”
“Oh, Torque, I love you.” Her nails scraped along his scalp, urging him on. Wet kisses against his ear had his balls tightening. He jerked against her, barely able to begin a firm, hard roll of his hips.
“Yes, hurry. Harder,” she moaned.
“Baby, you feel so damn good.” He lifted up on his knees, dragging her hips up his thighs and then crouched over her, pounding into sweet slick heat with quicker and quicker lunges. His angle gave a deeper penetration, but he was past knowing what he was doing. Pure sizzling sensations had him. Pleasure so intense he gritted his teeth to hold back, wanting it to last. Wanting her to come. Needing her to come first. He craved her cries. The way she called his name and urged him on when he came inside her.
“Sweetheart, now. Come for me. Now.”
“Oh yes, yes, there, there!”
He watched her arch her neck against the bed, gasping for breath. He knew on his next lunge her climax would hit. He gave her a hard, powerful stroke and held himself there, so ready to blow his balls felt like tight, hard rocks at the base of his coc
k. With a cry, she began to shiver under him and chant his name.
Stars exploded behind his closed eyes. Her silky sheath milked his swollen dick with hard, perfect contractions.
“Shit, yeah, yeah, come for me.” His balls drew up tighter and his ass shivered in anticipation for a long intense second. With another cry, she bit down on his shoulder. The sharp nip was all he could handle. He groaned out her name as his own orgasm rumbled up his body like a freight train. Enormous spurts of seed filled her, shaking his entire body.
Eventually the shudders lessened and his muscles turned from stone to mush. Careful not to crush her, he tumbled to the side, panting, sweating, and still tingling.
Next to him, Beauty gasped but didn’t stop lightly running her hands over his arms and chest. She pressed breathless kisses to his jaw and wiggled closer.
“I love you.”
“Gods, baby, I love you too. This is the icing, you’re the cake.”
“Oh, Torque!”
She lifted her head and stared up at him, breathless, pink with passion still and so sexy he cupped her breast and smiled over at her.
“Not that your icing isn’t addicting too, baby.”
“But you’d love me even if I didn’t come on command?”
He laughed so hard his dick slipped from her body. Still he laughed and pulled her close to hold her tight.
“You never listen to any of my other commands, so it seems only fair.”
“Mmm, okay. I’m good with that.”
His cell phone intruded on them, reminding them both that the storm hadn’t yet passed.
“I suppose that means we have a long day?”
“Only for a while, sweet, this newest threat can’t last too long.” He pulled her tighter. “And we deserve a holiday. Just you and me, nothing else.”
“Mmm, sounds perfect to me.”
He curled around her, while she wiggled until she managed to drag him practically all over her, then with a happy sigh, she drifted to sleep.
If only he could do the same. He’d not been exactly truthful. This newest threat wasn’t going away easily. He could tell in his bones. But he was tired. Tired of the constant battle, the fight to solve the Death Stalker problems, the cycle of unrest and rest. He hadn’t lied about needing a break. With her in his arms, maybe he could think of how to get them that well-earned rest while she slept.
