Silken Rapture: Princes of the Underground, Book 2 (12 page)

Last night had been a grave error, but he’d been so weak…and suddenly, she’d been there. So beautiful, so powerful. He couldn’t do the impossible, like Aubrey. He couldn’t change the direction of gravity with his magic, or grow fields of the exotic mulberry underground.

He was nothing but a beast in human clothes.

Once he’d tasted Isabel Lanscourt, there had been no going back. The truth might be wrenching, it might be sad, it might be infuriating…

…but it was the truth, nonetheless.

He wished the wolf aspects of his human form wouldn’t make it so that his cock grew so swollen after climax. He longed to draw out of her tight, sweet hold. He wished he could see himself spilling the last of his seed on her smooth, satiny skin. He longed to see it on her belly, too, and her breasts and her lips.

Savage that he was, he couldn’t help but crave to mark her again and again, put his scent all over her, fill her to overflowing with his seed.

He panted for air, standing next to the couch, her hips and buttocks clutched in his hands, his cock still erupting inside her, vast waves of pleasure ebbing, but slowly.

Silence settled around them.

After a few minutes, she stirred and mumbled. Regret lanced through him, but there was nothing he could do. He knew his cock was stretching her, knew he was too large for her delicate body, but he could not withdraw.

He
would
not
have left her, even if his penis had not grown swollen in its post-climactic state, locking him to her. Words of comfort eluded him. What could he say that would soothe in these circumstances? He’d taken her blood, knowing what she was. He’d mingled their essences, knowing what he was.

It was ludicrous for him to want to comfort her, given what he’d allowed to happen. He’d taken her prisoner, and now he’d taken her as his own. There could be no baser crime in the human world. The knowledge that what was between him and Isabel Lanscourt was something ruled by a different order and morality than the human variety didn’t help alleviate his guilt.

He kept her in place with one hand and stroked her with the other, his touch the only way he could think to soothe her. His fingertips thrilled to every new patch of sleek, perspiration-glazed skin. She stilled beneath his touch, and he knew she was hyperaware of his hand…knew it because their minds, their very senses, were one in those taut moments in which he comforted her.

He untied her hands when his erection had eased, and drew out of her.

“Be careful. Don’t touch anything,” he murmured as he eased her down on her side on the couch, her hands now in an abbreviated praying position in front of her. Neither of them spoke as he gently, carefully replaced the gloves. When he’d finished, she scooted back on the couch and turned on her side, staring up at him with heavy eyelids, her lustrous hair spilling around her shoulders. The dying fire cast her skin in pale gold. Her vitessence danced like a million minute fireflies around her. She burned in his eyes; her satiated smile was like watching a brilliant sunset.

“Delraven.”

“Call me Blaise.”

“Blaise,” she murmured, and something powerful stirred in him. Their minds were joined. She’d known he’d meant it literally. He’d longed to hear his name on her tongue.

She held out her arms. “Come to me,” she mouthed.

He swayed on his feet, hesitating. Her beckoning arms did not waver.

He felt ridiculously enormous and ungainly when he sat down on the couch next to her. She was delicate curves and soft, pale skin, a luminous female beacon, while he was huge and hard and dark in comparison to her.

He froze when she touched his chest and stroked him.

“Stop it. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she said, the wry hint in her voice warning him that she’d read his mind. Again. She glanced up at him, her brow quirked up in amusement. Their gazes held, and he had the sensation of melting into her.

“What’s happening, Blaise?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice cracking slightly.

Her small smile faded. For a brief, panicked moment, he was sure he was going to see her expression morph into disgust and fear as her pleasure faded, and the truth of what he was struck her consciousness. He swiftly placed his hand on her temple, preparing to spare her of her memories of him and what he’d just done to her…to spare
himself
from seeing that horrific realization in her eyes.

“Don’t do that…
don’t
be afraid, not of me,” she said, anguish overcoming her features.

Her soft plea was like the edge of Morshiel’s heartluster piercing his chest. He cupped her temple and willed her to forget.

Chapter Seven

A week later, Aubrey came upon David Kwan where he stood beneath Lord Delraven’s crest and the torch-lit corridor to his private quarters.

“Cleopatra requests your presence, Menas.”

Kwan looked about sixteen years old instead of three hundred and fifty when he broke into a grin. Isabel Lanscourt had this very effect on the Literati. Kwan possessed one of the most brilliant minds in the field of physics Aubrey had ever known, but he’d turned into a lovesick puppy in the past week as several of them helped Isabel with her production of Antony and Cleopatra during their free time. Blaise had hired a small troop of classically trained Shakespearean actors along with a crew, but a few of the Literati had also succeeded in auditioning for parts. Aubrey had become thoroughly amused as he watched battle-hardened warriors and scholars of the highest degree pose and gesture on the stage. Never mind the amusement Aubrey got out of watching them scramble to grant Isabel Lanscourt’s every wish.

“Are they rehearsing Act II?” David asked excitedly, even as he glanced back at Delraven’s corridor and a tinge of regret shadowed his features.

“You may go to the theatre, David. I will take watch here.”

“But Lord Delraven said that—”

“I know who Delraven has set a guard for, and I assure you that Ms. Lanscourt will not breach his hallowed sanctuary.”

David hesitated. The Literati were actually quite militaristic in their duty and command. When Lord Delraven gave an order, it was typically followed without the slightest alteration. Delraven didn’t always explain his tactics to them, but in their battles against Scourge revenants or any other intrigues in which the Literati took part, Delraven had never failed to provide the smartest, safest strategies for combat and operation.

Aubrey also possessed the respect of a long-time leader, however, and he had Delraven’s trust. The Literati had seen proof of that time and again.

“Go on, David,” he urged gently. “You can trust me to your duty.”

David looked relieved. “Thanks, Aubrey. Thanks a lot.”

Aubrey checked his watch and tucked it back into his velvet vest pocket. He wagered about five minutes, if that. The costume designer Blaise had hired had been taking her final measurements, and she’d planned to shower afterward.

He sensed her presence—he smelled her blood—a full twenty seconds before he saw her. Isabel started when she saw him standing there, but then approached. For the second time that evening, he took note of her slightly hollowed out, flushed cheeks. She’d lost weight in the eight days she’d spent at Sanctuary, even if her color was good—excellent, in fact. Her cheeks and full lips were flushed dark pink with blood and her velvety eyes shone like dark beacons. Her chestnut hair was unusually glossy and full. Her small breasts were even more pronounced than usual, rising above the taut lines of her torso. She wore a bra, but there was little padding. He could see the areolas of her nipples pressing against the fabric and couldn’t help but wonder if they were as pink and flushed as her lips. If she’d lost weight, it’d done nothing to diminish her beauty. It only enhanced it. He’d speak to Margaret about her eating habits, though. It wouldn’t do for her to become ill.

“Aubrey. I-I hadn’t expected to see you here.”

He smiled, allowing his gaze to drop over the vision of her. The wrist-length white gloves she wore looked out of place with the jeans and form-fitting scarlet T-shirt. He knew that Michael Lord, who maintained a network of contacts with the police on the surface world, had managed to clandestinely procure her purse and suitcase. Aubrey had been touched by her happiness upon receiving her familiar belongings and hadn’t seen fit to correct her in her belief that it had been his idea to get the things. In fact, her belongings had been retrieved under Blaise’s direction. The man was uncommonly concerned about her, even if he did carefully avoid her.

Aubrey preferred to see her in the sophisticated silks provided to her by Blaise, or even in her elaborate theatrical costumes. Nevertheless, he acknowledged her beauty at the moment, shower-fresh and clean-scrubbed as it was. Some day, he would drape her in richer robes than even the costume she’d removed just minutes ago.

One day, she would be the queen of his underground kingdom. He would make that bitch-demon Shirian, whom he regularly summoned and with whom he communed, serve her. He hid a smile at the fantasy.

Fortunately, he made a habit of making his fantasies reality.

“I’m sure you hadn’t meant to see me here,” he replied pleasantly. She caught the hint of sarcasm in his tone. Her gaze sharpened on him.

“How did you know I was planning to try and see Lord Delraven?” she asked.

Aubrey shrugged. “I saw the glint in your eyes when you were talking to Titurino about the perfect person to play Marc Antony.” He arched his brows when she gave him an innocent look. “Are you going to try and deny it? You’re carrying a script in your hand, Isabel.”

She glanced down and blushed. He laughed.

“You are a fool to attempt to persuade him to join your play. Even if you were to gain an audience with Blaise, it would be a lost cause. Blaise loves to watch a play, but he’d feel himself a fool strutting about on a stage.” He stepped closer, holding her stare. “I, on the other hand, would make an ideal conqueror and even better lover.” She gave him a glacial glance. “For Cleopatra,” he added.

Her scowl faded and she laughed. He chuckled along with her. He’d carefully cultivated her friendship in the past week.

“You’re impossible, do you know that?” she remonstrated as she glanced down the crested corridor distractedly. “Unfortunately, you’re probably also right. You might have to be my Marc Antony. I can’t seem to get close to Delraven.”

“May I ask, why this fever to see Blaise?”

She looked troubled.

“What is it, Isabel?” he asked, suddenly sober upon sensing her unrest. She gave him a flickering glance.

“I-I don’t know.” She hesitated and looked around, as if looking for eavesdroppers. “Can I trust you, Aubrey?”

“No one more.”

She bit at her lower lip with small, white teeth, the gesture mesmerizing him. He became hyperaware of her small breasts pressed tightly against the cotton fabric of the T-shirt, the swelling of her lungs with air, the seductive throb of the pulse at her white throat.

He blinked and looked away from the glory of her. The spell of her overcame him a lot—too much, in fact. It had been torture for him to court her this past week, to talk with her and spend time with her and gain her trust.

“It’s…it’s very odd about Lord Delraven,” she began haltingly. “Even though I’ve seen him only briefly, and he seems to be avoiding me, I feel as if…”

“Yes?” he prompted when she faded off.

“I feel as if I
know
him somehow. I-I have dreamed of him…or something,” she whispered.

He followed the trail of extra color that stained her cheeks with focused attention. Jealousy flared in his breast. He’d experienced the feeling only once before to any great degree—centuries ago when Elysse de Gennere got a similar look of longing in her eye when she spoke of Blaise, and when Blaise’s did the same.

And the feeling of jealousy burned much greater at the present moment.

Aubrey sensed Isabel wasn’t being completely honest, so he pressed with his ascendancy, urging her to open up and tell him her secret.

For there
was
a secret here.

“Lord Delraven is a singular creature, Isabel,” he murmured, using the power of his voice to hypnotize. “Not even he fully understands the origins of his power. It’s not surprising he has an effect on you, even from a distance. Many of the mortal women who have come to Sanctuary over the years have experienced his pull. He has had interactions with humans over the centuries—humans on the surface, that is,” he clarified, pointing upward, “and his magnetic aura has never failed to have an effect on men and women alike.”

“Are you trying to tell me I am experiencing what any mortal would in his presence?”

“I am saying that your obsession to see Delraven isn’t that unusual. You are behaving as most would—man or woman. It is why Delraven is so careful about not taking a lover on a long-term basis. Women become obsessed with him. You’re no different.”

Her chin went up after a few seconds and she met his stare levelly.

“You’re wrong,” she said quietly. “Do you know how I know that?”

“How?”

“Because for one, he puts you here as his guard against me. He’s afraid of me. I know he is.”

“Perhaps he’s afraid
for
you.”

“No,” she said, her voice like steel draped in velvet. “Something is happening that I don’t understand. I think he doesn’t understand either, just as you don’t, Aubrey. Not even with all your wisdom. I must talk to him. Will you help me, or not?”

She was magnificent in that moment. The real Cleopatra had nothing on Isabel Lanscourt.

“Do you want to plea for your freedom?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.” Their eyes met. “No…” she admitted.

Disappointment mixed with his jealousy as he tried to read her chaotic thoughts. She didn’t know the secret either, although she sensed its outlines in her mind and spirit. That secret was torturing her, he realized with a sense of amazement.

“I don’t know what I want. I just know I need to speak with Lord Delraven. Will you let me pass? As you did that first night, Aubrey?”

He stepped nearer, so only a scant few inches separated the tips of her breasts from his ribs. “You recall what I required as payment for passage on that night?”