Blood Flows Deep in the Empire (13 page)

As she walked toward one of the archways leading to the balcony, she had to admit she wasn’t imagining things. Dyletri seemed to want
her almost as badly as she wanted him. He’d waited eleven thousand years, not touching another woman since Dimithinia. So what had changed?

And was Ismini trying to figure this out because she needed an excuse to give into what she felt? Because, if she were honest with herself, what she felt for Dyletri wasn’t only because of the mating.

Ismini wandered past an ornate mirror on her way outside. She stopped and fingered her neck, turning it back and forth, examining the skin there and thinking about how incredibly fucked she was. Keeping her mark hidden was damned near impossible. Whenever Dyletri was even within half a mile of her—which was all the freaking time—her neck burned in a way that made the ache in her chest seem like child’s play.

The heat thrumming beneath that one piece of skin caused Ismini to break into a sweat. It was so bad that Evesse had noticed and told Ismini all about this “phenomenon” she’d read about called “early menopause.” Ismini almost slapped the bitch.

Really. She loved Evesse, but sometimes the girl just . . .
ugh
.

Ismini stepped away from the mirror, convinced her mark was hidden. She continued and walked onto the balcony that wrapped around half the compound, as they called it.

To Ismini, it seemed like a gigantic mansion, or a temple even, but it was their home. Who was she to argue?

She marveled at the beauty of the night. She had learned that the artificial daylight of this realm had been a gift from the god who’d created it. Ianthen had told Ismini the god’s name was Zexistr and that he was one of the ultimate gods, if not the main one.

The God of Existence, they called him, and with a name like that, Ismini was more than a little afraid to meet him. Not that she had to worry. Unless he chose to visit within the next week or so, she’d never have the chance. Even if her days weren’t numbered, she’d learned from Cy that Zex spent most of his time in the mortal plane—on Earth—or in another dimension with his daughter and her “bitch of a mother”.

Those words had seemed harsh, but then Cy—who was related to Zex in one way or another—explained that the mother of Zex’s daughter was the Goddess of Illusions and therefore a lying, selfish, childlike female. There was more to it than he’d told her, but the expression on Cy’s face had made her wary of delving any further.

Shaking her head, Ismini looked out over the night and tried to will her body to cool down. Enzyria was always a pleasant, springlike temperature, which did nothing or to help her endeavor.

She’d tried showering in ice cold water, too, but it hadn’t helped. In fact, between the showers and her mated
hormones, her nipples were threatening rebellion.

Her pussy was, too, but she’d already abused her bullet. And no matter how many orgasms she gave herself, the deep, yearning emptiness inside her seemed to grow worse.

Something caught Ismini’s attention, making her turn her head. There was a low sound coming from her far right, and as soon as she took two steps toward it, she knew what it was. Her whole body roared to life, and before she knew it, the mating rushed up on her and she was moving.

Ismini walked the length of the balcony with light but hurried steps. She made it halfway around the circumference of the compound when the moonlight illuminated a figure she’d come to recognize so well.

Dyletri stood in front of the stone balcony railing, staring off into the night. Ismini knew she should walk away, but something in his expression made it impossible.

His shoulders were slumped forward. He looked exhausted in a way that no being like him should have been. Even taking into account the moonlight reflecting off his white hair, Ismini could tell he was too pale.

Worry got the best of her, and before she had a chance to think better of it, she was approaching him and calling out his name.

“Dyletri?”

His entire body went rigid. So much that Ismini feared for a second that he was on the verge of jumping right off the balcony. There was something about him that throbbed with energy, but the way he seemed to tremble and refused to acknowledge her had her taking one more cautious step forward.

“Are you okay?” Ismini knew she couldn’t hide the worry.

He glanced toward her, most of his face hidden in shadow. She tried to keep her distance, she really did, but her body was rebelling against her in the worst way. Next thing Ismini knew, she was walking closer to him again and the closer she got, the more she saw that he was, in fact, trembling.

“I’m serious. What’s wrong?” she asked again, fighting the urge to reach out to him.

“Ismini . . .”

Ismini had been told that beings like him couldn’t get sick. But at that particular moment, she was doubting that with every fiber of her being, and the mere thought of something happening to him made her want to die.

She wasn’t being melodramatic, either. Vedlyl had explained that if Dyletri did somehow die, Ismini was going with him, no matter what.

A mated being couldn’t live without their mate, plain and simple.

“Please. Please tell me what’s wrong.” She continued her advance, not even realizing how odd it was that he was walking backward.

That he seemed to be
fleeing
from her.

Dyletri’s back met the end of the balcony, where the wall was. “I need you to stay back,” he said, his tone menacing.

Ismini couldn’t see his face. But she could still see those damned tremors. She couldn’t have forced herself to walk away even if she had wanted to.

Dyletri shook his head and stepped away from her. “No. I need you to stay back.”

Huh?

“I’m serious, Ismini. Stay back!”

She was a mere three feet away from him and couldn’t stop. His energy had leaked into the air and was throbbing around her, vibrating and hypnotizing her and drawing her closer.

“There’s something wrong with you. You’ve been looking sick for days!”

Please, just tell me you’re okay. I’ll force myself to leave somehow . . .
just say you’re all right.

Ismini stopped in front of him. Past the point of rational thought, she raised her hand and placed it on his shoulder.

She had thought he’d done all he would do to imprint himself on her mind and body.

Ismini had been
so
wrong.

Moving at top speed, Dyletri grabbed her and turned them both. He pressed her front against the wall he’d just been backed up against. Ismini almost
died.
The very air she breathed became molten inside her.

He was close to her back. Too fucking close. So close Ismini just wanted to whimper and press herself against him. She wanted to rotate her hips and beg him to do something about the ache inside her.

Exhaling shakily, she wished there was a way she could dig her nails into something. Anything.

The same way his hand was digging into the stone next to her head.

Dyletri leaned closer, his face nuzzling her hair. Ismini swore that the strands had developed nerve endings all of a sudden. She felt his touch shooting through them. Up into her scalp. Down into the fabric of her skin.

Lower.

A gasp left her. She was barely holding on to her sanity. “Dyletri.”

His hand, the one that that had been digging into the stone, disappeared. It came back, slamming so hard into the wall that Ismini jumped. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the cracks spreading out from where his fingers were.

Ismini shouldn’t have been able to see those details in the dark, but Dyletri’s skin was glowing again. His veins were lighting up in the same way they had in the alley back on Earth. No, wait, it was more than that. Every individual vein on the back of his hand glowed.

Then Dyletri murmured her name. “Ismini . . .”

She shuddered and almost came right there. His voice was seductive against her ear. Her entire uterus throbbed and threatened to leave her body, and the resulting gush was embarrassing. She shook as she fought the urge to force herself on him.

There was no way she could ever overpower him, but she wanted to. God, did she want to.

Ismini heard the stone on the side of her head crack some more. Heard the stone railing to her left fracturing as well. She should have been frightened by how powerful Dyletri was, but instead, she felt something inside her snap loose. Felt whatever control she had over the mating turn to ash that was swept away and consumed by a tornado of need. She was defenseless.

“Ismini . . . stop me. Tell me to stop.”

His voice slid into her. There was something in his tone that her body instinctively recognized. Something her body bowed to, but her will refused to obey.

“No,” she whispered. “No, I don’t think I want to.”

Chapter 11

Ismini expected to be filled with embarrassment, but it never came. The air around her grew harsh with heat, and all she could hear were Dyletri’s desperate breaths. When he broke the tense silence, there was an obvious split in his voice, an echo that sounded more dangerous than he did.

“What did you just say?”

She had never heard so much power within a being’s voice before. She peeked at his hand. His whole arm trembled, his muscles bulging. Each vein appeared enlarged and pulsed with that white glow. It had to be his blood, if the way the light circulated in his veins was any indication. Ismini bit down on her lip, shaking and feeling a violent kind of energy overcome her.

“I don’t want you to stop,” she whispered, giving in and shifting her body. She gasped under her breath when her back came in contact with his chest. An alarming amount of heat radiated from him. Her flesh should have been burning right off.

Then again, given the way Ismini was feeling right then, that might’ve not been too far from happening.

His chest vibrated, and she quivered in response. His growl was loud, vibrant, powerful, and the sound was almost enough to make her eyes roll into the back of her head.

Ismini looked over at his arm again, and before she realized what she was doing, she had leaned over just enough to run her nose up the expanse of his arm. She inhaled his scent, felt his blood pounding under his skin.

“Fuck,” he said, that odd echo multiplying behind his voice.

“I’m going to die anyway,” Ismini murmured, replacing her nose with her lips.

Dyletri jerked but didn’t pull back. “Shit. Ismini . . .”

His skin lit up even more as she brushed kisses across his arm. The light was hypnotizing.

“Show me what it’s like. Just once. I want to know.” She pressed her lips against one of his more prominent veins. Her eyes slid shut, and she moaned as her tongue slithered out and tasted him.

He flipped them around so fast that Ismini was left pouting. She was so fucking hungry, and the way her tongue tingled with the energy and taste of him?

Sweet baby Jesus.

She lifted her eyes to his, running her tongue across lips. Lips he watched with the intensity of a predator. His gaze had gone white again. Ismini knew it was from the energy coursing through him. She licked her lips again, dying to feel him. Any part of him.

She got her fucking wish in a way that she’d never expected.

One of Dyletri’s large hands wrapped around her leg and lifted her onto the tips of her toes. He slid her body up the wall to press against him. Ismini’s head fell back, a moan ripping out of her throat when she felt him.

And oh God, the man was fucking
huge.

“You have no idea what you are asking of me.” Dyletri was panting as he lowered his head. His nose skimmed her jaw, leaving goosebumps in its wake. “Fuck. The way you smell . . . it’s been killing me, girl.”

Ismini clawed at his shoulders, grabbing on to his shirt until the material was dangerously close to giving beneath her fingers. He skimmed his nose across her jaw a few more times before he decided to pay her back for her earlier stunt.

The moment his lips touched her jaw, Ismini was catapulted into a riot of sensations the likes of which she’d never imagined.

Her eyes closed, and all she could feel was how soft Dyletri’s lips were. How full. How wet and fucking succulent they were.