by Anna Carven
The temperature around him plummets…
Then he disappears into thin air.
“Kaim?” I blurt, shocked by his sudden disappearance.
But just as I’m about to leap to my feet in alarm, he’s back, reappearing before me as an alabaster and obsidian blur, solidifying into the most beautiful, dangerous, wonderful man I’ve ever seen.
“A little warning when you do that,” I gasp. I’m never really going to get used to this power of his.
“I had to find these,” he rasps. “I didn’t want to leave you here waiting.” He holds out his hands and shows me a jar of ointment and some soft cloth bandages. “Take off those blankets and lie down on your front.”
Ooh, he’s being so bossy now. Why do his growled orders send a quiver of arousal through me? I can’t tell him that when he speaks to me like that, I would do anything he demanded of me.
Anything.
Feeling languorous, I shift out of the blankets and lie on my stomach, resting my head on my crossed arms so I can watch him as he works.
It occurs to me that he’s still naked. Now I have a perfectly good view of his cock, which sits proud and erect, a tiny pearl of moisture glistening at its tip.
Heat spills between my legs, and my clit throbs against its metal piercing.
How long it’s been since my body has come to life like this. I almost forgot what it feels like.
Kaim works quickly, his touch impossibly gentle as he rubs the mysterious ointment into my skin. His fingers are cool again, and soothing. I wrinkle my nose. The ointment smells faintly of lemons.
“Where did you get this? What is it?”
“Something I know will help. You’re not the only one who knows about medicines and potions.” He keeps working, spreading the ointment all over my wounded back. It tingles and has a slight numbing effect. When he’s done, he pulls me into a sitting position and wraps the bandages around my back and torso, tying them together just under my breasts. Then he steps back and nods in satisfaction, seemingly satisfied with his handiwork. “That’s better.”
“I feel much better,” I sigh as I lean back on my elbows and take in the view.
My fierce warrior of darkness and light; half-human, half something I don’t understand, but what does it really matter?
Kaim folds his arms, the black ink serpent flexing and shifting along his powerful forearms. He stands back and looks me up and down, consuming me with his eyes.
“Finally,” he rasps.
He’s barely holding it all in, like a dam that’s about to burst.
I go very still, transfixed beneath his midnight gaze. My breath catches in my throat. The pain across my back fades into nothingness as desire takes over, tautening my nipples, sending a wave of anticipation through my core, making me tense and hungry.
Then he moves, and the air around him seems to split and shimmer. Shadows trail behind his eyes as he walks forward. Darkness swirls around his obsidian-ink fingers. The infinite stars are in his eyes again, beckoning to me, daring me to fall into nothingness.
Kaim hovers over me; sinuous and predatory, inhuman and wonderful.
My Kaim.
The one that saved me.
And in doing so, he became so very much more than just a hired killer.
I rise up, overcome with the sudden urge to give him pleasure; to take his massive hardness into my mouth and...
“Stop,” Kaim says, encircling my wrists with his cool black fingers. He pushes me back down onto the bed, pinning my hands there, allowing me to lean back on my elbows as he kneels above me, his hardness so undeniable and overwhelming…
His face could be carved from pure white marble; his features show the most perfect look of desire I’ve ever seen.
I open my mouth to say something, but he silences me with a kiss, still holding my wrists tightly.
I’m his captive now, and that’s the only way I would ever want it to be.
He leans in and kisses me deeply, and even though his lips are cool, they quickly grow warm as I kiss him back, allowing myself to be led by his undeniable lips; his insistent, probing tongue.
He tastes of ice and fire and cool mountain streams.
He kisses me furiously, taking his time to savor my lips. Then he plants kisses on my jaw, my neck, between my breasts, taking a moment to take each of my nipples between his lips, his devious tongue flicking out and teasing my piercings.
It makes my nipples stiffen even more. I arch backwards, the breath leaving my throat in hoarse gasps as he goes lower, planting a trail of soft kisses down my belly.
He slips down the side of the bed, dropping onto his knees, pulling me upright into a sitting position with my legs hanging over the side.
Still pinning my wrists on either side, he looks up and smiles.
It’s a possessive smile; a triumphant smile, because he’s finally stolen his prize—me.
Away from all the horrors in the world; away from the empire that tried to grind my entire existence into the dust.
And he defeated them, and now he holds the world in the palm of his hand.
What bliss.
“I finally understand what it means,” he whispers, and his magic spills over into his voice again, making it sound more than human. The fine hairs on my arms stand on end. “I understand what it means to have something I want to protect in this life above all else. Before I met you, Amali, I knew nothing apart from empty power and hollow revenge.”
“But there was enough goodness in you,” I say softly. Goosebumps rise on my arms as he caresses my wrists with his thumbs. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have saved me and my people.”
“The killer in me would have called myself a sentimental fool. Perhaps I inherited that sliver of goodness from my mother, or maybe I learned just enough of humanity from observing the people I was sent to kill. But it helped that you were so beautiful.” He says it without a hint of irony, his lips curving into a smile. “Now that you’re mine again, you will want for nothing, and you will never have to fear anyone or anything again.”
When he declares it like that, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will move the hells and the world itself to keep me safe.
He might just be able to do it, too.
My heart swells. It’s hammering like crazy. “I know, Kaim. I know you’ll do the right thing by me,” I say, barely recognizing the sound of my own voice, as it’s grown hoarse with desire. “Just as I’ll do right by you.”
“This is right,” he murmurs, tightening his gentle-yet-firm grip on my wrists. “Open for me, Amali.”
I blink in confusion.
Before I can say another word, he leans forward, and I have no choice but to widen my legs.
His cool breath feathers over my hypersensitive, throbbing cunt, sending a tiny dart of ecstasy into my body. He inhales deeply, a low growl erupting from his throat. “I have waited so fucking long for this.” He buries his face in me, kissing me, his sinful lips gliding over every inch of my need.
I squirm.
I twist.
I gasp.
I have nowhere to go. He holds me close, demanding my pleasure.
Tongue gliding in and out of my soft folds.
Lips sucking gently on my metal piercing, turning darts of ecstasy into arrows.
Fingers slipping into my entrance, going deep, curving, finding a spot inside me that I didn’t even know existed; that gives me such impossible pleasure when he runs the pad of his finger over it.
He was cool, but now he’s warm again.
At last he lets go of my wrists, and I collapse back onto my elbows, closing my eyes and tipping my head back as he pleasures me over and over again.
I rake my hands through his silky-soft hair. As my legs go over his rippling shoulders, he rises up and pushes me back a little so my feet are up in the air.
He sucks on me until I’m a hot, quivering mess; until my breaths are ragged and my skin glistens with a faint sheen of sweat. My hair is tousle
d and wild. My hands slide over his head, his neck, his shoulders, digging into his skin.
He lets out a deep growl.
His hands curve around my ass, pulling me closer to him.
He sucks on me again and again, driving me mad, toying with me…
Sending me higher and higher, until I’m so close to the edge I’m flying.
Stars blossom behind my eyelids, and then something makes me open my eyes.
I look down.
He looks up, lips still pressed against me.
“Please…” I whimper.
The corners of his midnight eyes crinkle as he smiles.
His tongue flicks out, just one more time.
And a great tremor starts in my body, like the beginning of a swell of a wave from very far away.
Before I can even understand what’s happening, he pulls away, rising up on his knees.
The tremor becomes a little stronger.
My jaw hangs open as I’m treated to the sight of him naked and fully aroused, my juices glistening on his lips.
The tremor turns into a small quake.
Kaim wraps his hands around the back of my neck, around my head, threading his fingers through my damp hair.
Then he leans in and eases himself into me, holding me tightly, suspending me above the bed in his powerful embrace.
At first, he’s slow and gentle, but as soon as I wrap my legs around his back and pull him closer, burying him inside me up to the hilt, something inside him snaps.
The small quake turns into an avalanche.
I come.
And he starts to fuck me, holding me tightly against him, hips pounding back and forth, lips on my neck, planting deep kisses as he has his way with me.
Small aftershocks ripple through me like circles on a pond, growing bigger and bigger as a gentle kind of bliss spreads through my entire body.
Still, he fucks me, his thrusts growing more and more intense. I run my hands over his back, feeling his muscles as they bunch and flex, reveling in the sheer power of him.
I stare at him through a haze of pleasure, marveling at the fierce look on his face…
And then, unexpectedly, I climax again, and this time there’s no warning, just pure ecstasy as he wraps his arms around my neck, and I hold onto him so tightly, even as my body goes boneless, even as he comes inside me, and a different kind of heat spreads through me, soaking into every last pore of my body.
He cries out, riding his climax, keeping me in his unbreakable embrace as he takes his pleasure.
And then at last, when he’s satisfied, he kisses me softly in that secret little place behind my earlobe before playfully tugging at my earlobe itself with his lips as he runs his fingers through my hair.
A flurry of kisses lands on my jaw, my cheek, and finally, my lips as he lays me down gently on my side.
He comes with me, still inside me, and for moment, we just lie there, staring into each other’s eyes.
Caught in a perfect tangle of bodies and limbs.
Basking in each other’s presence.
Me hardly believing I’m here with him, safe and warm and feeling better than I’ve ver felt in my life.
Reaching across, he brushes the hair away from my face and smiles. “You complete me, my Enaka, in a way that I never could have imagined possible.”
“You give me everything that I never thought I could have in this life,” I reply, finding his hands. I twine my fingers through his, astonished at how quickly he’s grown deliciously warm. “And you were right, Kaim. I don’t know what it’s like beyond the veil. All I know is that this life, being here with you… I would never trade it for anything.” My chest fills with a torrent of strange emotions; euphoria, sadness, relief. Tears well in my eyes. “You… you came back for me.”
Kaim grows thoughtful as he gently caresses the back of my fingers with his thumb. “Second chances are never to be taken lightly, Amali. Everything is different now.”
“Yes,” I murmur, as Kaim’s warmth and the decadently soft bed and the luxurious woolen blankets lull me into a drowsy kind of euphoria.
Everything feels perfect.
I drift into sleep.
At last, safe in his arms, I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Forty-One
Kaim
I take her back across the continent, through the deep of winter.
Sometimes, I freeze time and carry her, wrapped up in furs, across the plains, across villages and farmlands and densely wooded areas.
Other times, I steal a horse and take her riding, galloping across snow-covered plains and through cold, glittering forests and across frozen rivers and lakes that will start to flow again very soon.
And day by day, little by little, the ice starts to melt, and we head along the foothills of the Talamassa range, going further north, past the snow-capped mountains, past the Black Mountain, past the Great Confluence, where the Skyglass lakes flow into the Syal, past the gravel-strewn Greylands and the Spitting Earth, where pools of stinking sulfuric mud spit and bubble, at times sending plumes of boiling, steaming water high into the sky.
Ordinarily, I would have called upon Vyloren and demanded she fly us there, but the last time we communicated, she informed me she had battle wounds from fighting the Midrian army as they tried to invade Tenggu territory…
And then there is the small and not insignificant matter of a hatchling that has arrived.
She and Raki have gone to some hidden subterranean bolt-hole, and she will not leave her youngling’s side, even in slowed-down time.
I can understand that, because I will not leave Amali’s side for anything after what she has been through, so I pass our best wishes to the dragon and Raki and I let them be, instead taking the opportunity to be alone with my cherished mate.
As we travel through the winter, I hunt and cook for Amali, feeding her wild pheasants and hares and salmon that I catch by cutting holes in the ice of frozen lakes and streams. Little by little, her cheeks and curves start to fill out, and pleasing me immensely.
The wounds on her back heal, and the valuable limonari salve I stole from the abandoned palace seems to be a good job of reducing the scarring.
We talk as we travel, sharing our pain, remembering our joys, falling deeper into each other’s existences as we speak of our dreams and hopes and things I once never really allowed myself to consider, like having children.
“Imagine you of all people,” Amali teased me at one point, “with some rosy-cheeked, plump little babe crawling around underfoot, demanding this and that, drooling and gurgling, driving you out of your wits. You with your brooding and your stern looks and your secret ruthless plots. You would fall apart!”
“I would not fall apart,” I retorted, a little indignant that she seemed to be casting my potential child-rearing skills into doubt.
Ha. With her child? I would be as gentle as a summer breeze in the evening.
She laughed at that, but then she grew thoughtful. “But… with your blood; what you inherited from your father. Can you even…”
“Of course. He fathered me, didn’t he? My mother was a Tieglander, just like you.”
“I still don’t understand how that was possible if Lok can’t exist in this world for very long.”
“Well, he must have been quick then,” I say dryly, although I have to admit, I am curious about the circumstances of my conception. The old man has a lot of explaining to do. “Who knows what a god’s magic is really capable of?”
I snort at the memory of that conversation as I run even faster across the flat, rocky plain, where scattered clumps of grass have turned brown from the winter frost.
In a few moons, they’ll be green again.
But I’ll have to let go of time in order for that to happen. Right now, I’ve got Amali in my arms, and I’m running as fast as I can, suspending time so she doesn’t have to endure the last leg of our arduous journey.
She’s tired.
Traveling so far
in winter after what she’s been through…
Anyone would be tired from that.
All she wants to do is find a warm place to sleep and be for a while; not for just a night, but for days, even a few moons.
Even until the next winter.
She doesn’t want to go far. She just wants to find a place that feels like home again.
As I crest a small hill, I see something in the distance—a lone horse in suspended motion, galloping across the grasslands. I can’t really make out its coloring from here; it’s just a dark silhouette in front of the pale pink setting sun.
I hold Amali close and run across the grasslands, a fresh burst of energy surging through my legs.
I want to see this beast up close, if only to admire it. I would not dream of trying to ride a wild horse. Only a Tenggu could do that.
We are not too far from the valley where the Tenggu shelter during winter. It is perhaps three days walk from here, or a day on horseback.
An easy trek, across flat country, with the clear sky above us and the white-capped Talamassa Mountains behind.
I will make her a fire at night and wrap her in furs and slide in beside her once I have worked enough that my body has become warm again.
Well, that was what I planned to do, but now that I can see this horse a little better…
He’s big and proud and powerful, with a painted black and white coat.
I know this horse.
I run until I’m standing in front of him; still a good distance away, but clearly in his line of sight.
Then I let time go.
The wind comes rushing back.
I hear the thunder of hooves.
Above us, a hawk lets out a piercing cry.
Amali blinks, her gaze distant and unfocused. I gently lower her to her feet. She shields her eyes against the midday sun as she looks around.
She doesn’t betray any sort of surprise. She’s used to my time-skips by now, and she knows that I would never ever pull her through time without her permission unless there was some imminent threat to her safety.
“Where are we now?” she asks, pulling the furs tighter around her body. The wind has a sharp bite to it.
