Flight: The Roc Warriors (Immortal Elements Book 1)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  “An heir is one. That’s a child, not children.”

  “Do you not want children?” With his brows furrowed, he looked as puzzled as he did concerned while placing his fork and knife, which he’d been using to cut the meat on his plate, down on the placemat and twisted to look directly at me.

  “Well, I never thought about it,” I said. “I don’t know that I’d be a very good mother. It’s not like I grew up with an example.”

  “I have no doubt that you will be a wonderful mother to our children.” Shadow emphasized the word children. Apparently, he’d decided. We were having children. Several soft snickers around the table led me to believe there’d been some eavesdroppers to our conversation.

  “Why will you be king?” I asked Shadow.

  He chewed his bite and swallowed. “I am the oldest. But as I am twin, fraternal twin, it comes down to who pair-mates first. In order to take the throne, we must be mated. We must have the one who will be our counsel, the ear to the king. The queen is every bit as important as the king in our culture. In her own way. You chose me over Rogue. Therefore, I am pair-mated first, so I will become king.”

  “What if I had chosen Crest?”

  Shadow laughed again in that condescending Meena-is-being-so-cute-again way he had. “Good question,” he said. “Not that it would have ever happened, as you were meant to be mine, but as he is third in line, he would not necessarily become king unless the king stepped down without Rogue or I having been mated.”

  “What happens to me when you become king?” I sipped on my sparkling water.

  “I do not understand, my dear one.”

  “We’ve mated. You said it’s the Roc way to mate for life. Hence, I’m sticking around, which you just said would make me your advisor. So, what happens? Like would I be elevated to chancellor or known throughout your kingdom as your righthand?”

  “Righthand? No, you are elevated to queen.”

  Queen? Me? No… no. That was ridiculous. “I can’t be your queen, Shadow. I’m not queen material. I’m a volcanic researcher. Volcanic researchers aren’t queens.”

  “Apparently, they are.” He chuckled. “Though once I become king, your day will be filled. I do not see you sticking with research.”

  “What, may I ask, do you see me sticking to?”

  “You will have my ear. You will be busy taking care of me, of our children—being a mother to our people. There is much to do. My mother will show you what you need to know.”

  I’m sorry… did he hit his head?

  Some things were worth fighting about. This was definitely one of those things. Though not with his entire family around. But I’d worked too hard to earn my degrees, too hard to build my reputation, to give them up to be a stay-at-home… stay-at-home mother or whatever to his kingdom. Me and my new husband definitely had a hashing out coming for this one. I didn’t care that he was a birdman whom I’d inadvertently married last night. I didn’t care he said they mated for life. I was a scientist. The end.

  “Meena?” Shadow’s elbow jabbed gently into my waist. I startled and looked to him. He gestured with his chin to his mother, who had been trying to speak to me.

  “Sorry, what?” I asked Avalon.

  “I said we’ll need to begin working with you, to bring out your powers. What’s on your agenda for today?”

  “Mother, we have only just been mated. Meena and I need some alone time,” Shadow said, his exasperation evident.

  At the same time, I spoke over him. “Oh, um… I have to get back down the mountain.”

  All conversation stopped. Abruptly. We could have heard a pin drop.

  I looked around the room, trying to make sense of the reaction. “What? What did I say?”

  “Go back down the mountain?” Shadow asked. He sounded angry now. Angry.

  “Well, yeah. I have a job to do. That volcano has been dormant for over ten thousand years. Your father wasn’t even born the last time it erupted. And now it’s smoking.” This conversation couldn’t have been any weirder. I just told my husband that even his father hadn’t been alive ten thousand years ago, as if that shouldn’t have been obvious with any other father.

  Shadow, however, didn’t seem to notice. He, instead, pushed back from the table and stood, grabbing a hold of my hand to pull me up as well.

  “We will just be a minute,” he clipped curtly.

  To which I heard Crest laugh. “Apparently, we dodged a bullet, eh, brother?”

  “Apparently,” Rogue replied.

  But that was as much as I heard being whisked out of the room and back into the private throne room where Shadow slammed the door behind us. Then he swiftly, yet gently shoved me back against said door, pinning me there with his massive, sexy, strong body.

  “Go back down the mountain?” he asked, his hot breath hitting my lips and cheek and chin. “To where it is not safe. To where the buzzards and wolves want to kill you. I just got you, and now you want to go? Do you have a death wish?”

  “No, I don’t have a death wish, Shadow,” I hissed. “But firstly, you never told me they wanted to kill me. I just thought it was a wild animal thing and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Secondly, it’s my job. Something is up and I have to figure it out. People could die if I don’t.”

  “You could die if you do, as you were definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time. That being, a human around creatures who despise humans, and now my mate. I cannot put your life in danger, eaglet. My dear one. My wife.” His lips hit my neck and he pressed kisses to the skin there, pulling with his teeth. His fingertips at my temples held my face stable as he pressed with his pelvis against mine, holding me in place.

  It could be said there were perks to having a destined mate. The sex had been freaking unbelievable and it looked like we were headed straight for Fornication Lane once again. Worried-for-me-sex. I’d never had that before. And despite having gotten busy more times than my va-jay-jay should’ve been comfortable with, I so totally was—comfortable with it. Before we got on with the good stuff, though, he had to understand where I was coming from.

  “Send someone with me,” I whispered. With him so close, his musky eagle scent filled my nose. He made me dizzy with want, dizzy enough that I started grinding my girl bits against his boy bits and I moaned. The hunger in Shadow’s eyes told me he might be willing to bend if only to get in my pants. “Promise me, Shadow. Please, promise me… you won’t stop me from going back down the mountain.” Then, without waiting for his reply, I put my lips to his jaw, and whispered, “Take me, husband.”

  We walked back inside the private dining room about a half hour later to the snickers of his family. Not only was my hair disheveled and I had been straightening out my sweater and camisole as we entered the room, but you could once again smell the sex. Thick, musky, and sweet. Beautiful. Arousing.

  “Take me” had dual meanings and my husband understood them both.

  “I see you worked out your differences,” his father said.

  “We have come to an understanding,” Shadow replied. “My mate needs to survey the mountain. I will accompany her along with a few guards. Probably Race and Bracken.”

  “I’m in,” Rogue offered.

  “Me too,” Crest agreed.

  Most of the royal family was going down the mountain with me. If it wasn’t safe for me, what did it mean for them?

  Chapter Eight:

  Bringing the Honesty

  “My cases are at the boarding house,” I said.

  “No, eaglet. They’re in our apartment.”

  “We have an apartment? Where?”

  He led me down a massive hallway. At the end, a giant portrait of Shadow and his family, he and his brothers mere boys, hung on the wall in an ornately fashioned gold frame that separated two doors. We took the door to the left.

  This came several hours after brunch where we spent the time letting the family get to know me. It was nice. We moved to Talon and Avalon’s personal sitting room w
here the butler brought us trays of mulled elderberry, and kept them coming. Anyone who spent time with the royal family would pick up on how close they were. Crest and Rogue ribbed me the way I assumed my real brothers would have, had I had any real brothers. Avalon, then, always had my back. Though, she needn’t have as we always ended up laughing.

  Up two flights of stairs, I found myself a little bit tipsy—swaying to and fro—as we entered another hallway, although the stairwell went higher. This level had only four doors spaced very much apart, because the area was huge.

  Once again, we took the door to the left, the second door to the left.

  When someone said apartment, I thought small and cramped for space. This place, I realized, took up one quarter of one of the massive turrets. It even had a second story. And unlike the boarding house, the apartment had decorations. Not ostentatious by any means. A comfortable, upscale bachelor pad.

  “Welcome home, my dear one.” He slipped his arms around my waist and pulled me back against his hard wall of beautifully toned chest.

  For my part, I began to giggle, biting down on my lips to keep from descending into outright hysterics. The tipsy showing through.

  “What?” he asked, sort of with an irritated bent.

  I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “You live with your parents. It’s cute.”

  “No, eaglet.” His voice turned seductive, a low rumble in my ear. “We live with my parents.” Then he nipped the bottom lobe of my ear. “And I plan to have you on every surface of this apartment.”

  Yes, I could certainly get on board with that. “Bed?” I whispered.

  “No,” he countered. “Here.”

  Yes, definite benefits to finding my mate. Did honeymooners usually have this much sex? Or was this reserved for the shifter world? With my head sort-of swimming—from the alcohol and from my husband—I felt any remaining inhibitions flitter away. For a man over three hundred years old, he had amazing moves in his repertoire. But as we dropped and he took me hard on the floor in the living room of our grand apartment, I truly understood about the mating for life. Something had clicked on inside me when I’d met Shadow, something that had lain dormant my whole life, waiting for only him.

  And he felt it too. He showed me how much he felt it.

  I had a mate.

  Shadow was my mate.

  Essentially my husband. Essentially a husband who gave the most mind-blowing orgasms a girl could ever imagine. And mine was coming. Literally.

  With Shadow buried deep inside me, I cried out, convulsing around his throbbing manhood. My heart beat so fast. The pounding continued in my chest. In my ears. And most gloriously, in my sex.

  “Shadow,” I whispered.

  “Eaglet,” he panted. Close. I widened my legs and tipped my hips up to give him more of me. Never having the chance to come down from my climax, a second less powerful, but more beautiful, current rippled up my spine as he let loose his release, filling me.

  His forehead pressed to mine, his eyes closed with blissful contentment, he moved in and out a few more times before he stopped, releasing a shuddering breath.

  “I think I’ll like living with your parents,” I whispered again, this time on a soft giggle, and hiccupped.

  “Welcome home, dear one.” At that, he kissed me slow and sweet, a kiss full of love and pride and promise.

  Never, I’d never known such kisses existed, but knew intrinsically it wouldn’t be the last. I had a lifetime of kisses just like this ahead of me—and maybe even better.

  “That was intense,” someone said through the closed door.

  “You think that was an orgasm, or did she throw her back out?” came a second voice.

  “How many times does that make today? Saēna! She is going to need reconstructive surgery down there if he keeps this pace.”

  Unsure of where my boldness came from, I called back to my mate’s brothers. “Trust me, it’ll be well worth it.” After which I broke into a fit of giggles.

  My Shadow smiled so brilliantly beautiful, wide and bright white. Shaking his head, he chuckled softly along with me. “I suppose, eaglet, I should help you up.”

  “Ah, no rush. Do not get up on our account,” called Rogue.

  His comment had me laughing harder while Shadow muttered, “Replacing this door... Thicker... Soundproof.”

  And that got me laughing even harder still. Until he kissed the laugh right out of me.

  But he was right; we needed to get up. I had the rest of the apartment to tour and then we needed to pack. So much for a honeymoon. What could we do? I’d been sent to check out the volcano and I needed to fulfill my obligation. Too many lives depended on the results of my research. Was she gearing to blow? How much time did we have? Tests equaled predictions. Predictions equaled early evacuations. The earlier we could call for an evacuation, the more people could be saved. Simple as that.

  He stood first and I reached my arms up to him. Shadow grasped my hands to heft me to my feet. Then, dutifully, he bent to retrieve my clothing, helping me dress. Lightly caressing my arms as he replaced my tank, he then moved to glide his hands against my skin from my ankles to hips as he brought up my pants and buttoned them.

  His eyes were the deepest amber I’d ever seen in my life. Mesmerizing. Showing every bit of emotion. Love.

  Love.

  And then horrifyingly, I found myself admitting my truth to him in return. “I fell in love with you as bird.”

  “Eaglet.”

  “That month, when I took care of you as you healed… I didn’t want to admit it, but it’s true. The day I released you was one of the hardest days I’d faced in my life. And I’ve faced a lot of hard days.”

  Shadow pulled me into his arms, tightening the embrace, pressing my cheek against his still bare chest. “I did not know what to do. Leaving that day went against every instinct in me, Meena.” I heard his heartbeat. He dropped his chin to the top of my head. “You were mine. The other half of my soul. The knowledge came alive inside me that first moment I heard your voice call out to me and I met your eyes. Each of your kisses to my head burned through me in a way that filled me with the need to turn man and take you. As that is not our way, it meant it was not the right time to show my true self. But I watched you. Kept my distance, but watched, waiting.”

  “Shadow.”

  As if I hadn’t even spoken, he kept going. “When the wolves attacked… the fear. What if I had not gotten to you in time…? A life full of loneliness flashed before my eyes.”

  Unabashed tears rimmed my eyes and fell freely.

  “That day”—he dropped a kiss to my hair— “I decided no more. I would do what needed to be done to make you mine.”

  “Forget about us, brother,” Crest called through the door. “We have all day.”

  In only his unbuttoned pants, Shadow released his hold on me and turned to let his brothers in.

  I wanted to smack the cheeky grins off their faces. Rogue stood with his arms folded over his broad chest while Crest had his head bent down looking at his feet, his hands to his hips, snickering through his smile.

  “Well.” Shadow sighed an exasperated sigh. “Come in.”

  “Has she seen the kitchen?” Crest asked.

  “Have you packed?” Rogue added.

  They both knew the answers to their questions. “No,” Shadow answered. “We never made it that far.” He looked to his brothers, then to me. “Call Bracken and Race. Get them here. We will not leave without a plan in place to keep my mate safe.”

  “And what will you be doing?” Rogue’s new tone and posture screamed incredulity.

  “I am taking Meena upstairs to shower. Trust you understand we could both use one. Then we will join you back down here to commence planning.”

  “You, brother, are lucky I like you.” Rogue shook his head at Shadow, then went a step too far. “And really like her.” He winked, granting me with one of his sexy, panty-dropping smiles, reminding me of the night we’d kissed, alth
ough leaving me feeling like it had been with a completely different person. A person not me. The problem was, as I remembered, so did Shadow, and it appeared he didn’t like that reminder too much.

  Crazily, at that moment I found out the depth and magnitude of protectiveness or jealousy a Roc man felt for his mate when Shadow released me to surge toward his brother, his hand around Rogue’s throat, squeezing just enough to show he meant business, not enough to fully cut off his air supply. Rogue’s face turned red, not purple.

  “Shadow!” I screamed his name. Though I needn’t have worried. Rogue smiled. With a hand around his throat, he smiled almost conspiratorially.

  He was messing with his brother. The man apparently had the death wish Shadow had accused me of having, and there wasn’t much I could do for a man with a death wish.

  “That was your one,” Shadow bit out through clenched teeth. His tone was low and ominous.

  Yes, it appeared my man didn’t like being reminded his brother had kissed me.

  I walked the few steps to his side and gently peeled his fingers off Rogue’s neck, whispering in his ear a breathy, “Come on, Copper. Come take a shower with your eaglet.” Then I kissed him on the soft skin just below his earlobe. Thankfully, he let me lead him away, going on instinct up the stairs.

  Once we reached the top, he took over as lead, guiding us into a massive master bedroom. A supremely masculine bedroom. The walls were painted a brilliant indigo to entice sleep. The main feature of the room being the super king-sized bed with the most beautifully, intricately carved headboard stained a dark walnut. The shadows created by the stain in relief pushed each image forward.

  The witch and her eagle. Exactly like the exhibit in the museum—even though I still doubted the veracity of me being a witch, I couldn’t deny the sparks—exactly like us.

  Shadow had gotten to sleep every night content in the bosom of our story. In that moment I felt unbelievably loved. Growing up in foster care, I only rarely felt loved and even those times seemed… distant. As if both my foster parents and I had neglected to get too close because we’d been all too aware of the temporariness of my stay in their lives.