by Romi Hart
He sauntered toward her trying to gauge how he should approach. When he reached her, she swiveled and they fell in strolling side by side over the creek into the dense Quag.
He let himself take her arm and escort her out of earshot of anyone. He expected a thousand questions, but she kept silent until they entered the thickest undergrowth. Then she cast a frightened glance over her shoulder. “What was that all about? Who was that girl?”
Finn kept his eyes forward. “That’s Rhiannon Phillips. She’s NightRage.”
Claire looked back again. “If she’s NightRage, what is she doing here?”
“The Phillipses are all powerful telekinetics.”
“I know that. That doesn’t answer my question.”
He cocked his head to study her. “For someone who knows everything about everyone in Anarock, you’re surprisingly ignorant about this. Why is that?”
She rolled her eyes to Heaven. “Are you going to answer my question or not?”
“I don’t know.” He bit back a grin scanning his surroundings. “You might run on home to Bernard and tell him everything I’m about to tell you. How do I know you won’t use this information against us? You don’t want to seal an alliance with us which would include sharing information between our Crests. You seem to think that would be a one-way street, but what happens when we have information you don’t have? Maybe it would be in your interests to forge an alliance with the Prometheus Crest after all.”
She groaned. “Aw, come on, Finn. Why can’t you just tell me?”
He stopped and turned around to confront her. She was just as mind-blowingly beautiful as ever, but he saw more to her now. Her beauty didn’t confound him. He could hold his own with her, but that didn’t stop him from wanting her.
He leveled her with his direct gaze. “I’m right here, Claire. I’m right here with you. I fought with you. I promised to keep your secret from everyone, including Victor. I did everything to save Dorian. I used my resources to help your Crest, but I can’t do that if I can’t trust that you’re gonna be right there with me, too. If I tell you what Rhiannon is doing here and then you turn around and use that information against me and my Crest, I’ll know where SeamStream stands with the Prometheus Crest. I’ll know what to expect if we ever make the mistake of forming an alliance with you. Do you understand me?”
She stared up at him with her startled blue eyes. He watched the impact of his words settle into her mind. She blinked once. Then she bowed her head. “I understand. You can rely on my discretion. I won’t violate that trust.”
“I’ll know what to expect from you when you deal with me, too, Claire,” he went on. “This isn’t just about our Crests. It’s about you and me. I’m about to tell you something in confidence. I need to believe that you’ll use that information for the good of both our Crests and you won’t just stab me in the back and use it against us. If our Crests ever hope to form an alliance, it has to start right here, right now between you and me. If this thing between us means anything at all, I need to believe you’ll guard my secrets as your own. I need to know I can trust you.”
A brief smile flashed across her lips. “Are you saying you don’t trust me?”
He didn’t return that smile. Cold, clear certainty took hold of him. She couldn’t make him tremble and shake anymore. She could never unsettle him ever again. “You tell me if I can trust you. Convince me that I should tell you why Rhiannon is here. Convince me I should share one of my Crest’s secrets with you. Convince me we have an alliance, you and me, that’s worth more than the air passing in and out of our lungs right now.”
He didn’t know he felt that way until he vocalized the words, but he knew now that they were true. Whatever he and Claire were to each other, the alliance had to start with them. If they couldn’t come to an understanding between the two of them, their Crests didn’t have a prayer of ever being more than enemies.
She gaped at him for a moment. She didn’t blink or hesitate in the slightest when she said in a clear, unwavering voice. “I want that. I want that alliance with you. If our Crests never form any alliance, I want that with you. I want you to trust me as much as I trust you. I’ll protect you and your secrets as if they were my own. I will never turn over any information to my Crest that could work against your Crest or you. You have my word of honor on that. That might not mean anything to you, but that’s all I can offer you right now.”
He heard the ring of truth in her voice and saw it written across her countenance, but he still held back. “And your father? Will he honor your promise?”
She shrugged, but she didn’t look away. “He might not be happy about me withholding information, but when I tell him I gave you my word of honor, he’ll have no choice but to live with it. Nothing means more to my family than that.”
Finn glanced back toward the village. He didn’t need to hear any more to trust her. He already knew she was there with him. He just needed to hear her say it out loud.
“Rhiannon Phillips is a telekinetic like the rest of her family, but she also has magical powers the rest of them don’t have. She joined the NightRage Crest because they promised her training from their magic wielders to get her power under control. It was all over the place and she couldn’t function. NightRage paired her with a wizard who took advantage of her and made her into a sex slave. She went completely off the deep end. She lost her mind and killed about ten people before she went on the run. She asked Cameron Griffin for sanctuary because NightRage was hunting her down to take her back. She wasn’t safe in Anarock, so he brought her out here. She’s been here ever since.” He spread his arms on either side. “There you go. Now you know something no one else in Anarock knows. If you tell anybody, she’ll be killed because of you.”
She drew herself up and he saw the resolve solidify inside her. “I will never tell anyone, not even my father. She is safe here. You have my word on that.”
“Thank you. Now I need to talk to you about something else—something important.”
Her eyes widened. “What is it?”
“No one knows your family’s power. No one in Anarock knows you’re elemental shifters and I promised you I wouldn’t tell anybody.”
Now she narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you saying you plan to break your promise after all—after just making me keep Rhiannon a secret?”
“I won’t break my promise but think about it. How exactly do you think our Crests can form an alliance without everyone in Anarock finding out? What’s the point of an information-sharing agreement when you won’t share the most crucial piece of information of all? What’s the point of a strategic alliance of mutual defense if you keep your power hidden?”
Her features softened and she nodded. “I see your point.”
“They’re gonna find out sooner or later. If they don’t find out now, you could sabotage the whole alliance by trying to keep it a secret. Besides, I wouldn’t be doing my job as their representative if I didn’t tell Victor.”
She sighed. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to absolve me of my promise to keep it a secret. I want you to give me a pass to tell Victor what happened out here so he isn’t going into these negotiations blind. It’s only fair, don’t you think?”
She shut her eyes and bowed her head. He didn’t have to worry that she would go along with it. He trusted her to do the right thing.
She puffed out her cheeks. “All right.”
“Should you check with your daddy first? He might get mad that you preempted him in his own negotiation.”
“It’s my secret, so it’s mine to give. Tell Victor. Tell anybody. None of us could build an alliance without it, especially not you and me, and nothing’s more important than that.”
He wilted in relief and hugged her to his heart. He never hoped for such a response. It meant the world to him. “Thank you.” He pushed her back and inclined his head toward the woods. “You better get home. Your family will be wondering where you a
re.”
“What about you? Aren’t you going back to Anarock?”
He jerked his thumb toward the village behind them. “I’m staying here for a while. I’m not ready to go back.”
Her mouth fell open. “Why? You’re not staying here because of me, are you? Tell me you aren’t.”
He suppressed a small smile. “Maybe I am. I don’t know.”
Her eyes took on a dangerous glitter and her mouth stiffened. She locked onto him and refused to release him. “What about the negotiation? We won’t deal with anyone but you. If you don’t come back, we won’t negotiate any alliance with the Prometheus Crest.”
He shrugged. “I find that hard to believe. Your father and Victor already met once. I guess they can talk to each other without any help from me.”
She shook her head. “You said the alliance had to start with you and me. If we go back together, we can tell them we came to an agreement. That will lay the groundwork for the Crests to come to an understanding, too.”
“That’s us. If they can’t come to an understanding with me, then I guess they won’t come to an understanding. I’m not going back yet. I’m staying here. You go on. Your family needs you.”
She peered into the Quag. He expected her to nod and take her leave more or less reluctantly, but she didn’t. She furrowed her brow and glared at him smoldering in determination. “If you’re staying, I’m staying, too.”
His eyes popped. “What?”
She dipped a quick nod and threw back her shoulders. “If you’re staying, I’m staying, too. You’re not staying here alone. That’s bullshit.”
His jaw dropped. That must the first time any word of profanity passed the lips of anyone by the name of Novak. He might be tempted to believe she gave her word to keep his secret. He might even believe she wanted to stay with him in the village, but this?
She tossed her hair off her forehead and squinted into the woods, but her cheek twitched with barely veiled wrath. “I’m staying, Finn. Don’t even think about sending me back to Anarock.”
“Okay.” He couldn’t breathe. He had to put his arms around her again. He had to feel her near him. “Okay. I won’t send you back.”
He buried his nose in her hair. Christ, she felt so good! She was his. She was his the way he was hers. The walls came tumbling down and he understood for the first time what she really meant when she gave her word to keep Rhiannon’s secret.
He clasped her to him and her arms never felt so right against him. He closed his eyes. What he knew, she knew. What he had, she had. That was the alliance they sealed with each other and the rest of the world could go hang.
She was in his arms and she would stay there. He didn’t know how that would go when they returned to Anarock. Maybe they would have to turn against each other. Maybe instead of allies, the Prometheus Crest and SeamStream Crest would become enemies. Maybe Bernard would expect Claire to fight against Finn. Victor might throw Finn out for revealing a sensitive Crest secret to someone belonging to a Crest that flatly refused to ally with them. How should Finn know what the future held in store?
None of that mattered because he had his arms around her. He kissed her ear and that kiss tasted better than all the ecstasy and climaxes of last night. His heart cracked from the strain of containing everything he felt for her in that moment. He wanted to crush her. He wanted to pulverize her and press her into his flesh where he never had to worry about her leaving him.
He couldn’t do that. He had to turn around and walk back to the village. He led her an empty hut. He conducted her up the steps. She contracted in on herself peeking around the bare room. It wasn’t what she was used to, but she didn’t protest.
He sat down on the bare floor and guided her down. She smiled at him through her trepidation. She let herself melt into his lap and relaxed against him.
He combed her hair behind her ear and lifted his gaze to her enchanting face. She looked different to him, now that they left behind the glamour and luxury of her father’s kingdom in Anarock. She didn’t appear cold and hard and impenetrable here. She looked small and lost and fragile. She huddled against him for protection. Her lips softened when he kissed her.
He rocked her in his embrace and he swayed her back and forth. She didn’t fight his moving her where he wanted. He could lay her down or lift her upright. Her mouth responded to his tongue and lips. Her head pivoted under the pressure of his movements.
Her mouth tasted sweet. Honey tingled on his tongue when he swept around her teeth and probed her throat. He tilted her all the way back and laid her on the floor. She yielded to his direction.
She settled herself under him on the bare boards. She didn’t offer a peep of complaint—she who slept every night of her life in feathers and satin. She enveloped him in her arms and her lips. She welcomed his weight on top of her. She spread her legs to lure him in. She wrapped herself around him without a shred of inhibition.
Her mouth intoxicated him, but more than that, the pure, unadulterated knowing compelled him to join his flesh and blood to hers. She was his. She merged herself with him when she gave him her word. That bond connected them with a more powerful link than any alliance. It meant so much more than he ever dreamed of asking. It was the alliance. This was it, that mystical bond that made them one and the same.
She gave it freely. Once he explained the situation to her, she offered her allegiance without reservation. She never for a second kept anything for herself. She would go against her father, her family, her Crest—everything. She would do it for him.
That was what she meant hooking her ankles behind his back. She swayed her pelvis against the insistent rhythm of him pulsing between her legs. She meant it slithering and swirling her tongue between their mouths. She was all his, body and soul, without end.
He quaked to realize she had crossed a line in the sand not even he knew was there. She gave herself fully, purely. Not even he could give himself so eternally, so completely. Could he? Should he? Should he put this woman ahead of his family, his Crest, his loyalty to his people?
He already did. He couldn’t take it back and he didn’t want to. Time and again, he helped her. He put her family and her Crest’s interests ahead of his own. He didn’t have to betray his Crest when he did that. He didn’t have to. Maybe neither of them never had to.
Maybe that was what forging an alliance really meant. Maybe it meant their interests would coincide rather than conflict. Maybe they were one and the same. Wasn’t that what Victor meant when he tried to convince Bernard to fight their common enemy?
Finn couldn’t answer any of those questions. She tapped a well of energy inside him that shut down his thoughts. Thought existed in another dimension. It became irrelevant. He only knew he had to kiss her and keep kissing her. He had to get inside her. He had to ally with her no matter what it meant. It was his destiny and he wanted it. Holy Christ, he wanted it!
She wriggled under him pushing her pants down and kicking off her boots. When he examined her, she burst out laughing at the craziness of it all. She tossed her shirt away. When he sank down on her, she was naked. She bared herself to him for his pleasure and use.
He always considered this moment the high watermark of his encounters with women. He brought them to the point where they exposed themselves to him and laid themselves freely before him to do whatever he wished. Once he accomplished that, what happened afterward didn’t matter so much.
Not her. She offered herself to him, but it was really himself that laid bare on the altar of their union. He was the one who presented himself to her and everything that happened after this meant so much more than this moment. This flash of time was the threshold, the event horizon leading into another, higher dimension.
He wasn’t ready for that. He couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t cope with joining himself to her, but he already knew he would go there. She would take him there. He couldn’t even think about unwrapping his arms from around her or prying his swollen cock from between
her legs to walk away. He would get in that dark, dripping tunnel and he would leave himself on that altar. He already knew that.
She slipped her delicate hands around him one more time, and this time, she glided under his t-shirt. Her fingertips traced the sensitive territory under his ribs and around to his sides. All their activity last night vanished in a kiss. She touched him as though for the first time.
That subtle stroke scorched his being. It shook him to his foundation and he couldn’t pull away. He had to suffer it. He had to endure it and everything that it implied. They stamped themselves with that destiny when they agreed to become allies.
She swathed her velvet arms up his sides. She caressed him in magical bliss that exploded his mind in its magnitude. She traveled all the way up his spine until she clutched over his shoulders from behind.
All the time, she devoured his kisses with her mouth wide open. Her tongue spoke and courted his tongue in hot, wet delirium. When she took hold of his shoulders, his shirt rode up his stomach. His belly grazed her tender midsection and the shirt became an after-thought.
He didn’t need clothes now. He yanked off the shirt and reared onto his knees to get rid of his pants. He discarded them and dove back on top of her as naked as she was.
He didn’t attack her in rabid lust, though. He moved slower now. He measured his movements for maximum effect. He judged the dilation of her pupil, her lips quivering when he hung back from kissing her, the bloom of color on her cheeks and neck and breasts.
God, she was so unbelievably beautiful! He couldn’t remember any woman being this beautiful. His heart made her so. That agony inside him, that desire to merge with her, came from his tattered heart. He wanted her being. He wanted her soul and her destiny. Her body and her mouth and her eyes only gave him the vehicle to accomplish that.
She spread her arms to invite him in. Her features radiated unstoppable rapture and heavenly bliss. He wanted to weep at the sight of her and she wanted him. She wanted him uniting that body with his skin. She wanted him to discover her inside herself. She wanted him to taste the magical fulfillment of coming together with her.
