The Shadows

by Cheyenne McCray

“What do you want, Hannah?” he murmured as his mouth neared her.

  “You.” She resisted squirming. “Your mouth. On me.”

  With a satisfied expression he lowered his head and swiped her soft flesh with his tongue.

  Hannah shivered and moaned as his mouth took control of her body. She lowered her head and gazed at him, causing more crazy eruptions in her belly.

  His gaze met hers and she could tell he liked her watching him.

  Moan after moan rose up in Hannah as she broke eye contact with Garran and tipped her head back. She lost herself in the feel of his mouth on her. It felt so good with his head between her thighs, the silk of his hair against her skin and brushing her mound.

  Goddess! She almost lost it when he thrust two, then three fingers into her core and began to slowly move them in and out. Everything went wild inside her. That floaty, tickling feeling grew in her belly, like butterflies swirling in a small cyclone.

  Hannah ground her teeth as she turned her head from one side to the other. She dug her nails into her palms and felt the ache building and building between her thighs. Her breasts were so sensitive to the slightest stirring of air as Garran licked and sucked until she was half mad.

  Her entire body started to tremble and she dug her nails harder into her palms. She felt as if her head were going to take flight. Garran growled against her flesh and she was gone.

  A sharp cry rose up inside her and she felt the butterflies swirl free from her body. They brushed her skin with their feather-soft wings from her belly to her nipples to her cheeks.

  Garran drove her on and on until her always dry eyes almost released a tear or two from the most intense pleasure she’d ever felt in her life.

  Gradually, he slowed as her core convulsed around his fingers and her body trembled beneath his mouth. The butterfly flutters faded and she unclenched her hands, and her palms stung from how tightly she’d been digging her nails into them.

  A few more swipes of his tongue before Garran stopped. She tilted her head down to see a very smug grin on his handsome face.

  Hannah’s heart beat fast and she had to inhale and exhale slowly to catch her breath. He rose up over her and started to fumble with the button of his jeans, getting ready to drive into her.

  She shook her head and pressed palms on his chest. “My turn.”

  He raised an eyebrow, but rolled onto his back when she pushed harder against him. She straddled him and brought her mouth down, gently brushing her lips over his and dipped her tongue into his mouth.

  She gave a soft moan as he gripped her bare ass while she kissed him. His jaw was smooth, no stubble on his face, just pure Elvin beauty. And she wanted to see more of him.

  Hannah rose and grasped his T-shirt, watching his face the entire time she did. He looked so damn sexy and sensual. The warmth of his skin heated her hands as she slowly pushed his shirt up while she let her palms run over his muscles.

  She took her gaze away from his to look down and watch the flex of his abs, his chest, his shoulders and biceps as he helped her take his shirt completely off.

  When he was bare from the waist up, she spared a moment to sit back and study him. His white-blond hair was splayed out behind him and his skin was almost golden in the afternoon light. He was simply perfection.

  Just as perfect as he looked with his silvery-blue hair. Either way, he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever known.

  Garran reached up and palmed her breasts at the same time he pinched her nipples. Hannah moaned and tilted her head back, enjoying the feel of the insides of her bare thighs snug against his jeans as she straddled him, and the feel of his hands and the cool air caressing her body.

  She tilted her head and kissed him again before scooting down his body, bypassing the button of his jeans, but making sure she ran her hand along the length of him, causing him to groan.

  “I shall remind you who is king if you continue to torture me so,” he said when she met his eyes.

  Goddess, she loved his accent.

  She gave him what she hoped was a regal gaze. “You’ll do this my way, Your Majesty.”

  “You have little time before I take control and am inside you, Hannah.” He caught her cheeks in his hand. “And when I take you, you will beg me for more.”

  “I don’t beg.” She eased away from his hands, down his body to his boots, before meeting his eyes again. “But I do tease.”

  He raised an eyebrow again, but groaned when she drew her hand down his jeans-covered hardness before focusing her attention on one of his boots. They were soft and supple, lace-up boots. She loosened them before sliding each one off and tossing them aside. His bare feet looked so enticing that she ran her index fingers under the arches of both of his feet.

  Garran jerked and rose up so fast to capture her wrists in his hands that it caught her by surprise. His expression was far too serious.

  “No tickling the king, I take it?” she asked with a smile.

  He drew her up his length, her bare body scraping his jeans. “Fucking the king, yes. Tickling, no.”

  “Then let go.” She continued to smile as she shook off his hold. So, he was ticklish, was he? She brought her fingers to the button of his jeans. “None of that until I’ve had my fill.”

  She glanced up to see him watching her with his intense eyes, and those damned butterfly feelings batted at her insides again. The zipper easily moved downward and her heart beat a little faster.

  Goddess, now that was a hell of a man.

  Instead of stopping to taste him, she tugged on his jeans and he raised his hips up, allowing her to take them all the way off. Her gaze met his. They were both naked, and she wanted to feel him on top of her, inside of her. But first she needed to taste him.

  She eased up his smooth body and grasped him in one hand. Probably because he was Elvin he had no facial or body hair, which she found incredibly sexy. He was so smooth and powerful looking.

  He was also so big it was a wonder that her fingers reached all the way around his length or that he’d fit inside her. Her thighs grew wetter and she lowered her head and slipped him into her mouth.

  Pleasure rippled through her like warm water as she watched Garran close his eyes and his jaw tighten. The realization of how much she affected this Elvin king, this man, made her feel heady, like she was caught up in a rolling wave. She fell into the spiraling lust that filled her just by being with him.

  Garran groaned and their eyes met while she moved her mouth up and down his length. Gone was the teasing, playful look in his gaze. In its place was fire and intensity, burning lust that made her feel on fire just by looking into the liquid silver depths.

  She let a little of her sparkling green magic flow from her hands to his groin, adding fuel to the flame.

  His eyes widened and his whole body shuddered. “Godsdamnit, Hannah,” he said, and grabbed her hair in his fists.

  She would have laughed at his look of need that magnified with her magic, but her mouth was filled with him.

  He was so big, but she took as much of him as she could. At the same time she infused her magic into him through his groin, pushing him closer to the edge. Yet she gripped onto the thread of it, holding him back, not letting him reach climax.

  Garran seemed to know exactly what she was doing and he growled. “Let me come, now, if you want it so hard I will take you to Otherworld and back.”

  Promises.

  Hannah released a larger burst of magic and let go of her hold on his orgasm. He cut back a cry as his body jerked, his hips bucked, and he began throbbing. She closed her eyes as she savored his incredible flavor. She’d never tasted anything like him.

  Lost in the feel of pleasuring him, she barely noticed that he’d taken her harder by the hair until he forced her to stop and slipped from her mouth.

  “Mmmmm ...” She opened her eyes and smiled at him as she licked her lips. “You taste so good.” She gave him a sultry look from beneath her lashes. “If all Elves do—”


  Garran growled, low and deep. He grabbed her by her upper arms, dragging her naked body over his much larger frame. “I am the only Elvin man you will ever be with.”

  He brought her so that her mouth was close to his. She couldn’t look away from the ferocity in his gaze. “The only man you will be with again.”

  Hannah wanted to say, “Yeah, right,” but instead she let him kiss her and send her spiraling through another storm.

  Once again his kiss was incredible as his hands roamed up her bare back, then down again to cup her ass. Her nipples rubbed his smooth chest and his member grew to its full length and girth where it rested between her thighs. Her core was so ready for him to be inside her that she tried to move so that he could slide in.

  He stopped her by gripping her ass tight in his hands. She raised her head and planted her palms to either side of his neck, and stared down at him.

  “You are so beautiful,” she murmured before she even realized the words were out.

  “Because I am fair when in the light?” he said with a frank look in his gaze.

  She shook her head, already having made up her mind what was the truth. “No matter what you look like, you are absolutely beautiful.”

  Garran kept one hand on her ass, but used his other to brush her hair from her face. “Nothing could be more beautiful than you, Hannah Wentworth.”

  She smiled and moved one of her hands to where his length rested. She grasped him and rose high enough to put it at the entrance to her core, and then sank down on him so that he stretched and filled her and touched her so deeply.

  Groans from each of them met and mingled as she began to ride him. He raised his hips to meet her as she slid up and down his shaft. She tilted her head back and grasped her breasts in her hands, pinching and pulling at her nipples as she took him.

  The moon and crescent band warmed her upper arm, the magic infused within it responding to the sensations in her body. She released her nipples, lowered herself, and braced her hands on his biceps. The added thrill of them flexing beneath her palms as he thrust in and out of her made her stomach muscles clench.

  Hannah rode Garran so hard that perspiration broke out on her skin and her hair grew damp against her forehead. An orgasm rushed toward her as if she were riding the crest of a wave rolling in from the ocean.

  Closer and closer the wave came toward the shore. Her whole body felt the movement, the pull of the tide. There was no waiting, no holding back.

  The wave rose until it crested and slammed against the shore, breaking her into countless pieces.

  Hannah cried out and fell forward against Garran’s hard chest, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on as her body seemed to fly in all directions. Their sweat-slick skin slid against each other as he continued to pump in and out of her.

  She was still trying to pull herself together as Garran rolled her onto her back. Her mind swam and her body convulsed as he took control of her, suddenly the king again intent on making her his.

  His what?

  When she looked up into his eyes his features were blurry but so beautiful he almost glowed.

  Even as he continued to take her, the powerful orgasm drifted off and a new one began to build. She didn’t know if she could take something of that magnitude again.

  But she was sweaty, aching, and needed to come again. Garran’s expression was so fierce he almost looked angry, and she wondered what he would be like if he was angry. What he would do or say, how he would react.

  Fleeting thoughts, all of them. Because her body, mind, and spirit were once again lost in just feeling Garran. Being with him.

  The next orgasm built slowly, as if he were somehow holding her back, not letting her come again so quickly.

  Dark power snaked from him and wrapped itself around her. Hannah cried out at the feel of it embracing her, pouring into every fiber of her being.

  The magic caused her entire body to tingle, to come even more alive. So much more alive that she didn’t think she could survive the kind of orgasm that it would give her.

  She looked into his face as he drove into her, his hips bruising the insides of her thighs with every thrust.

  The dark magic—a part of her wasn’t sure she should be accepting it so easily. It filled her with a power that almost scared her.

  But then she didn’t care anymore. She was alive. Truly felt alive for the first time in her life. She accepted everything about her dark king in that moment and wanted all he could give her.

  His intensity increased, his magic more powerful. She felt as though she were being carried away, taken someplace secluded where only the two of them existed.

  The power flowed up her like a fountain rising to where it would shoot like a geyser into the sky and fall back to earth in a harsh rush.

  “Come with me, Hannah,” Garran said, sounding as though he were talking through clenched teeth. “Come with me now.”

  His dark magic shot with her, and she screamed as it took her so high she didn’t think she’d ever come down. Didn’t want to come down. But when she did, it was another kind of rush that sent more spasms to her core.

  His climax hit and he growled as he pulsed and she felt every throb, every bit of his semen shooting inside of her.

  After the last twinges of his pulsing member, Garran groaned. He pulled her onto her side, their legs intertwined, her head resting on one of his biceps, him still inside her. She was so exhausted after that incredible bout of sex that her eyelids started to droop—

  Until the door opened and Hannah met Rhiannon’s horrified gaze—her eyes wide, her lips parted. She and Silver stood in the open doorway.

  Heated embarrassment rushed over Hannah.

  Rhiannon closed her mouth. Opened it. Her face turned red as she looked at Garran. “I can’t—I can’t believe this. You. Her.”

  “Come on, Rhiannon.” Silver put her arm around Rhiannon’s shoulders. “Let’s give them some privacy.”

  Face still bright red, Rhiannon backed out of the room and slammed the door shut.

  18

  “We’ve got to go.” Daggers of pain split Darkwolf’s head, causing him to bury his face in his shaking hands.

  From the beginning, after he’d been led to the stone eye off the shores of Ireland, he’d experienced severe headaches, as if there were something inside his head trying to stab its way out.

  But only when the dark god, Balor, influenced Darkwolf through the eye. Those times he’d been able to shield himself from most of the pain, blocking it so that it didn’t hurt as badly.

  Not anymore.

  And it had never been this agonizing.

  Even the dark sorcery Darkwolf used to shroud the eye, to slow Balor down, was weakening.

  Elizabeth’s chair screeched across the linoleum, away from the table, the sound causing Darkwolf’s head to ache even more.

  “Can you make it?” Genuine concern was in her voice. Darkwolf could almost believe she was human.

  “No choice.” Summoning what strength he had, Darkwolf rose and forced himself to concentrate on moving each limb one at a time.

  The eye weighed him down, as if he had the Golden Gate Bridge dangling from the chain instead of the stone eye, but he managed to get to his feet. His chair tumbled to the floor with a series of loud thumps as he staggered back.

  Balor was so close that Darkwolf was going to lose his mind if they didn’t move on. They had to travel farther away, but he knew they couldn’t flee from the city. Deep in his soul, he had no doubt the power of the eye would kill him if he traveled too far from Balor.

  Would death be better than this?

  Sometimes he thought it would.

  He had to figure out a way to get the chain holding the eye off his neck and send it to Otherworld where he hoped they’d destroy it.

  How the hell was he going to do that?

  Darkwolf raised his head despite the weight of the eye and staggered to the door with Elizabeth. He managed to move his fe
et, even though it was growing harder to do so every time the god closed in on their location.

  Stale smells of cigarette smoke and musty furniture battered his senses as he moved through the room.

  He would use the power of transference if it wouldn’t lead the god to them faster. It seemed to slow Balor down whenever Darkwolf and Junga fled on foot or by other contemporary means of transportation.

  At this moment, Balor was in the sewers directly below the apartments. Darkwolf sensed it with every nerve ending in his body. If the god had the power of his eye, he would already have been in the apartment with Darkwolf.

  If Balor had his eye, they’d all be dead.

  Elizabeth grabbed Darkwolf’s hand and jerked him behind her down the decrepit hallway with its water and graffiti-stained walls, faded paint, and smells of rat piss.

  He found that tiny part of himself that still remained untouched by the god and focused on it. He forced his feet to move and they ran from the third-floor apartment.

  Darkwolf almost tripped down the stairs, having to hold on to the railing to keep from falling. But he managed it and they made it out of the building and into the pouring rain.

  Instantly drenched, they hurried down one sidewalk to another. The rain chilled Darkwolf to the point his teeth chattered. At one time the eye had protected him, keeping him warm, but now he fought against the artifact’s power constantly.

  The magic now worked against him.

  Unless he could learn to control it and make it his own?

  At this time of the day there would normally have been packed sidewalks from employees heading home during rush hour. Jostling, talking, or blindly following their normal route. But due to martial law, now few people were out, and even those Darkwolf considered fools. They would be nothing but food for Ceithlenn should she get her claws on them.

  National Guard units prowled everywhere. Soldiers stopped people on the street, motioning with their rifles, and ordering the people to go home.

  Darkwolf and Elizabeth managed to dodge a few soldiers, but were stopped by more than one. Each time Darkwolf had to use his sorcery to twist the officer’s mind to forget they existed and to let Elizabeth and him pass.