by Gaja J. Kos
A flicker of annoyance flashed across his face, but disappeared just as quickly.
“So,” he said, voice smooth as if that slip in his facade had never happened, “together we would be unstoppable. We could reign the humans and supernatural alike, carried on the force and obedience of the reanimated.”
My jaw dropped. What he was saying were things you only heard in movies or read in books. Could he really be that unhinged as to believe we would walk down the path of…world domination? I would have laughed if I hadn’t been scared shitless.
Or if the world didn’t have enough corpses buried in its soil to actually make his plan plausible.
His hand reached across the table, snagging mine before I could pull it away. “Marry me, Lana Ambrose. Bind me to you and let us create a line of necromancers with unparalleled power to carry out our legacy throughout the ages.”
“You’re out of your mind,” I whispered, but the words still cut like blades through the air. I tugged my hand from his, nearly tipping over the delicate wineglass. “I’m not going to marry a murderer, Alexander.”
The blue of his eyes turned ice-cold. “And yet you came here to protect one who is precisely that.”
I flinched, fear creating a suffocating knot in my throat.
“I had hoped we could go about this nicely. That you would see the value of my offer of your own free will.” He hissed, a gesture so serpentine and laced with poison it chilled the very blood in my veins. “You should remember that I do not make idle threats, dear Lana. Just as I will not allow your inability to see greatness hinder my plans.”
I was trembling. I was trembling and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. Alexander was serious. I could feel it in the way his energy buzzed with the thrill of ruling over the world.
All this time, I thought demons were bad with their lust for territories and power. But not even my mother was this…evil. A hysterical laugh wanted to bubble in my chest. Gods, this was worse than a nightmare.
A sick, twisted nightmare that would sweep over my reality in one deathly wave unless I stopped it.
Only I didn’t know how.
“You will marry me,” Alexander pressed, “and you will join me on this path, or I will raze this city to the ground with my army of dead, starting with your beloved demon.”
He stood, wine sloshing over the edge of his glass. “I will give you one last courtesy as a token of my good will. Twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours for you to decide. You will find me waiting outside your bar when the time runs out.”
He stepped closer, almost enough to touch. Pale blue eyes stared down at me, his thin face tight with leashed violence.
“Accept my offer, Lana, or see everyone you love die.”
He walked out the door without another word, leaving me in tears and shivering—and with the sickening suspicion that he would get precisely what he wanted squeezing the last of the air out of my lungs.
Chapter 21
I couldn’t recall what happened after Alexander left. One moment, I was still in the restaurant, choking on my fear, the next I was standing in my bedroom, engulfed in the blue light coming from the summoning circle. My body exploded into particles, my travel lightning fast—as if Alin knew…
Alin.
My cheeks were salty with tears when I materialized in the throne room, every muscle in my body trembling until standing on my own two feet became impossible. I was sobbing, and weak, and there was nothing I could do to stop myself from breaking down.
To stop feeling so damn helpless.
Afraid.
Strong arms wrapped around me and whisked me off the ground. I curled into Alin’s embrace, curled in the bed of his energy and muscles, awareness of what I had to lose slamming into me with such force I let out a strangled cry. But he only held me tighter, not letting go even as he eased us both down on his king-size bed.
Still keeping me engulfed in his warmth, he reached over to the nightstand and offered me a tissue. “Go on, before you get snot all over the covers.”
I laughed, although tears just kept on flowing down my cheeks, and punched him lightly in the shoulder. But I did take the tissue.
His emerald eyes didn’t leave my face for a single second as I tried to piece myself back together, tried to kick-start that part of my brain that wasn’t all raw, bleeding emotion. I needed a plan. I needed to find an alternative to Alexander’s options.
Only there was nothing inside me but a messy wound, filled with so much hurt and hate that I was on the verge of drowning.
Alin kneaded his fingers through my hair as I sucked in large gulps of air. His expression was fierce, a leashed hurricane of violence, but he didn’t rush me. Instead, he offered me his unyielding support as I broke and crumbled, coming together only to fall apart once more.
I couldn’t tell how long I was trapped in that vicious circle, but eventually, when I was certain my words wouldn’t come out strangled with grief, I threw away the tissue and met his gaze.
“I saw Alexander,” I whispered.
Alin didn’t stir. There was only a slight twitch in the corner of his mouth, speaking of his displeasure.
“He doesn’t want to kill me anymore, Alin. He—he invited me to dinner. Tried to win me over to his side.” I laughed, and it was a bitter, bitter sound. “He proposed to me, for Chernobog’s sake.” I was shaking again, but the words kept on pouring out of me. “I refused, so he gave me twenty-four hours to change my mind. A courtesy. When the time’s up, I can either agree to marry him and hand him the means to actually give his fucked-up plans of superior power flesh. Or he’ll unleash a horde of zombies on Maribor and terrorize its people… But not before he kills those I love. Not before he kills you.”
Alin’s lips were a thin, flat line as he watched me in silence, his eyes dark with the same power I felt permeating the air around us. He wasn’t taking this any better than me, although he did hide it with far more skill than I could ever hope to muster. I sniffled, then cupped his face with the palm of my hand.
“If I join him, I’ll condemn the world. If I don’t, I’ll condemn this town. But most of all,” I whispered, tears once again slithering down my cheeks in heated rivulets. “Most of all I’m afraid of losing you.”
With a shudder, Alin leaned into my touch, his own hand coming to rest on the nape of my neck.
“I’ll do it, Alin. If it means keeping you safe, I’ll go to him. I’ll marry him. Maybe—maybe I can sabotage his plans from the inside. Maybe we’ll kill each other when he realizes how stubborn I can be.” My voice trembled. “Maybe I can—”
“You won’t.” His grip tightened, and he shook his head. “I love you, Lana. I’m not letting that fucker lay a damn finger on you.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “I’m not letting you go.”
Tears were streaming down my face, only now they had nothing to do with the hurt still bubbling inside me. But they did have everything to do with him.
“I love you, too,” I whispered, breathing in that scent of power my own magic had marked as its own. As the companion it wanted to have, for eternity.
I was still afraid of what it all meant, of the intensity of the desire and affection I felt for him. Of the way our energies called to each other, pleading us to grant them that final merging, which would bind us until the light caress of Veles’s realm snatched us away. Perhaps even then.
But as Alin’s lips covered mine, all my doubts scattered like early morning mist.
His kiss was fierce, a wild exploration filled with need neither of us could contain. I half sobbed, half groaned, my hand dropping from his handsome face to slide beneath the fabric of his dark T-shirt and trail the hardness of his chest. His heartbeat pulsed against my palm, its rhythm in tune with mine.
He gripped my thighs, pushing the hem of the dress up until his fingers touched the lace panties, and I shifted in his lap. I straddled him, the thickness of his erection pressing between my thighs through the strong material of his pants
, quivering to be released.
So that was what I did.
I tugged on the zipper, a moan blooming from my lips and fluttering onto his as I felt him break free from the restraints. My hand wrapped around his thick, pulsing shaft even as his fingers dug into my thigh hard enough to leave a bruise. A bruise I’d wear proudly.
He growled then, his breath growing erratic as I slid my hand to the very tip of his cock, then down again, enjoying every inch of the exquisite length of his velvet skin. My head was spinning from the kisses, from the heat of his body and the opulent fragrance of his energy, as much as the accumulating ache of my own need.
My own desire to join with my other half.
The air was thick with our desire, beads of sweat cooling our heated skin in a sensual dance that only enflamed us further. He grew thicker in my hand, so dangerously, alluringly hard. He tore away from my lips with a grunt and hooked a finger behind the neckline of my dress, all but ripping it apart as he tugged it down, exposing the nipple he then took in his mouth. Slowly, so, so, slowly, he licked the swollen bead, the caresses of his breath making it even tighter, bringing me almost to that cherished verge of pain where thinking became impossible.
“Please,” I whispered as I trembled. As every atom of my body burned for his touch.
His lips closed over my nipple in answer, teeth grazing the mound of my breast before brushing against the rose-colored bud. He pulsed in my hand, the throbbing, thick steel of unbarred desire pressing against my fingers. My magic responded instinctively, searching to wrap around his and to blend into the single entity we were meant to be.
A groan ripping through the air was all the warning I got before he pushed me down and tore my dress in two. Small bits of fabric flew to the side, a display that would have made me laugh if he wasn’t already moving, stealing my attention from the shredded garment. He pulled off his shirt, revealing the chiseled planes of his abdomen and chest, then moved off the bed to peel off his pants.
Gods, he was gorgeous.
I licked my swollen lips, unable to look anywhere but at the perfection that was him.
Every inch of his body was honed, a lethal, deathly blade of unparalleled power, physical and metaphysical alike. He looked down at me with those emerald eyes, so dark with hunger I shivered, and I knew—I knew it was my mate, watching me from under those lust-weighted lids.
“You’re mine, Lana Ambrose.” His voice washed over my skin, my magic, reaching all the way to my very soul. “And I’m yours. In this moment. As well as the eternity to come.”
As the last word left his lips, his power surged, slamming into mine. I accepted every inch of it. Melded with every vine, every atom that infused the air, until there was no him and me any longer, just the sum of us—an unbreakable whole, linked to overcome even the passing of time.
The ancient power of the demonic bond existing only between mates surged through us, a joining more intimate than any other this world held.
With shuddering breaths that matched my own, he crawled onto the bed. His fingers hooked behind my panties and relieved me of their oppressive presence, but he quickly replaced the touch of fabric with the warmth of his lips.
I cried out as his tongue plunged deep inside me, tasting me, drinking me as was his right. As I had wanted him to from the moment we first met and the sight of him, the presence of him stirred something ancient, something deep in the shadowed confines of my core.
My fingers trailed through the thick mass of his hair, finding a tether to hold on to as desire swept over me, lifted me ever closer to that sacred promise of release. His growl vibrated into my slick, aching folds as he drank in my own hunger for him, as he pushed me to the edge—and over it.
My orgasm came like a storm, ravaging my body, my mind, until I could do nothing but scream Alin’s name and hold on to him as the world around me shattered.
He rose as the sweet, shuddering aftershocks gripped me, all muscle and power. The look in his eyes was so primal, so male, I knew I couldn’t stand this separation between us to last even a second longer.
And neither could he.
His gaze never wavered from mine as he pushed inside me, the thick length of him sliding into my silken entrance, tight and wet for him. Because of him.
He filled me so completely, so wholly, as if our bodies had been created with one another in mind. I trailed my fingers across his shoulders, then slowly down the flexing muscles of his arms while he held himself above me, his hips moving in a slow, seductive rhythm that made me feel every glorious inch of him. I moaned as he pushed inside me, again and again, building up the tension that started to grow within me once more.
I was lost in his scent, enveloped in waves of his power. Nothing existed but us, the melody of our hearts and the song of our bodies.
Sweat beaded and trickled between my breasts, and he bent lower to guide his tongue up the gentle trails, before he rose up again to taste the pulse beating in my neck. The fire that burned for him, and him only.
He teased my heated skin, the taunting flick of his tongue and the wicked graze of his teeth before he bit down, sending me spiraling into the velvet depth of welcomed pain.
When he lifted himself once more, a smile played at the sensual curve of his lips, and his eyes were touched by that hint of intimate madness only the fiercest of needs could bring to the surface. I smiled, for the first time in my life dispelling all walls and guards until he saw me. All of me.
As I did him.
For a moment we stilled, gazing at each other, at the souls we had laid bare. Then he moved.
His cock was impossibly thick inside me, pressing against every inch of me as he pushed and retreated, building up the rhythm that threatened to sweep me away once more. Abs flexed and bunched, his looming frame made me feel small, fragile.
Loved.
He was a fiery storm stretching above me, a harbor where I would always be safe. My home. My life’s companion. The one I breathed and burned for. As he did for me.
“I love you,” I whispered even as I drowned in the fierceness of his gaze, in the strong thrusts of his hips and the opulent drug that was his energy.
He groaned, the shadows of pain we both shared somehow making his features even rougher. Even more stunning.
“Mine,” he rasped, the huskiness of his voice echoing my own.
“Forever.”
My fingers curled around the steel of his arms as he exploded into a frenzy, the slap of his flesh against mine ricocheting off the walls, and creating a melody to which we both danced.
I gasped as I felt him quiver, as I felt him swell inside me that instant before everything around us broke and we came as one, shuddering and panting and holding on to each other as if it were the last time.
Chapter 22
I couldn’t recall the last time my sister hugged me this fiercely. If ever.
“What the fuck have you gotten yourself into, Lana?” she whispered when she finally let me go.
I needed a second to recover from the surprise, as well as the sheer joy of her hug. I looked at Liva, at her voluminous blonde hair, impeccable makeup, and stunning, feminine features, noting the concern lingering there like a heavy veil. Right beside the determination to do what was necessary. Whatever it took.
A part of me still couldn’t believe that this was real, and the fact that it was gave me more hope than I could ever imagine.
Liva had always been the lightest one of the Ambrose sisters, relying on her Kolduny powers while keeping the demonic at bay. While I walked upon the divide between light and darkness with a fair amount of comfort, she had set up a firm wall in its place, refusing to acknowledge our mother’s blood that flowed through our veins. Quite successfully, too. But all that had changed a few months ago, when Liva not only found her mate, but embraced herself, every inch of her heritage, to save him. To save the entirety of Faery, as well. Her home.
“Looks like it’s a big year for both of us,” I said, but couldn’t qu
ite lift the strain from my voice.
Liva bit her pink-painted lip. “I’m glad you called. Whatever you need, Lana, just say it.”
I nodded, barely keeping back the tears.
It wasn’t that long ago that we had been practically estranged. The occasional courtesy call and visits sprinkled throughout the years hardly counted as a meaningful relationship. But fucked-up circumstances had the knack to produce, at times, effects of a more pleasurable, unexpected kind.
Liva’s struggle with her own darkness and the threat over her mate’s life had reunited us. And it seemed my own ocean of shit was about to reinforce that bond. If I managed to walk away from Alexander alive.
Just as I opened my mouth to explain what I had in mind, Alin walked through the living room door. He was dressed in combat pants and a form-fitting T-shirt, his russet hair gleaming under the artificial lights, vivid and wild. My whole body seemed attuned to his presence, the demon lord stealing my attention and breath alike. And when those emerald eyes met mine, I couldn’t help but smile. Smile as if there wasn’t a murderous, delusional necromancer out there waiting for my hand in marriage. Only him.
“Oh my gods,” Liva whispered, amusement touching the corners of her lips and lilting her voice.
I glanced at her and knew. Knew that she sensed our bond, so beautifully woven between us.
“Liva, meet Alin. My mate.” Something remarkably similar to a squeal left my sister’s lips, but my attention was already on the dashing demon lord who was my everything. “Alin, this is my dolled-up, antique-loving sister.”
Liva poked a finger at my ribs. I jumped and let out a little yelp—much to her and Alin’s amusement. I knew I should have been worried about the deadline that was closing in on me far too quickly, but seeing the two of them laugh, having them act like the family I’d always wanted… I snickered and rolled my eyes.
“Nice to see the in-law relations are going to work,” I said with a huff, then raised an eyebrow. “Unless I fry you both for messing with me.”
