Drink of Me (17 page)

Such a dangerous affront was unforgivable. Because of this insolence, the apothecary would lose his life.

Reule hadn’t sent Delano, although as Prime Assassin this was very much in the realm of his office. He’d resisted sending Delano away while Chayne was still ill. His Assassin would be peeved when he found out, but it was Reule’s choice to make and that would be the end of it.

For now, he contented himself by watching as Mystique turned her full attention on the newest of her patients. She spoke in an easy tone, her movements slow and careful as she asked questions. Her eyes moved in steady sweeps to observe what wasn’t being said. She was, he thought, brilliant and beautiful, and she set his whole world off its axis.

It was instinct that sent his gaze to the left, finding Darcio’s inquisitive gray eyes watching him. His Shadow kept himself a blank in thought and emotion, depriving Reule of any insight into why he was being observed so closely. So he turned back to the more satisfying task of watching Mystique tend his people. She was able to send her two new patients away with herbs, instructions, and a request that they return in a few days. They both left and she brushed back damp, straggling hair from her forehead. While his Pack was in ideal health and had the vigor to drive themselves accordingly, Reule could see that this wasn’t the case for his little
kébé
. She was tired, and it was getting hard for her to hide it.

“
Kébé
,” he said as he pushed away from his spot against the wall to approach her. She looked up and her smile became tentative. Damn, he hated that. He supposed he deserved it, though, after acting the overbearing ass that morning. To be fair, though, he’d been motivated by a need to protect her. He wanted her well. He wanted her healthy.

In all selfish, male honesty, he wanted her. Period. So badly that he felt as though he were pacing in the trap of a too-small cage. He’d set the limitation on himself to wait until she was well, and it had been the right thing to do, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t screaming inside for her. By the Lord, when she’d come striding into the common room bustling with healthy energy and purpose, it had been the equivalent of what a striptease would do for other men. And because he’d been thinking with other things besides his brain, he’d acted like an ass and upset her. Then that upset had triggered a memory from who knew what type of horror, and now she didn’t want to trust him with it for fear he’d see her as delicate and weak. Which, in all fairness, she was. At the moment.

But he’d never meant to imply that he thought her frail. She didn’t know he and Darcio had traveled through her body memory. They knew what she’d endured in the wilderness. It was enough to prove she was a survivor. She was also quite powerful, ’pathically speaking. It’d be ridiculous to accuse her of frailty.

Reule had kept the information gleaned via Darcio to himself, unsure what to do with it. He couldn’t escape the notion that the longer he held on to it, the less honorable an act it became. He should tell her what he knew. It would mean explaining Darcio’s gifts, something no one outside of the Pack really knew of, but he could sense Darcio trusted her well enough. The downside was what her reaction might be. Mystique might resent him for keeping the information secret. Or, if he told her all he knew, it could trigger a chain of memories like this morning’s, and he dreaded being the source of more pain and fear.

With all this weighing on his mind, he stepped up to her and held out a palm.

“
Kébé
, the evening meal is in thirty minutes, and you’ll want to clean up and change. As will your companions,” he added as the Pack stood watching him with poorly repressed amusement. All he cared about was that she didn’t hesitate to put her hand in his, and he closed his fingers around hers gratefully.

“Rye, please see that Stebban is made comfortable in here for the night, with a servant to tend the fire so he catches no chill.”

“Don’t worry, Mystique. If there’s one thing no Sánge will ever allow in this keep, it’s the catching of a chill. Tomorrow we’ll see about putting electric heat in your infirmary.”

“Truly?” She looked delighted and breathlessly appreciative. “That would be wonderful.”

“It’s an easily accomplished task,” Reule said shortly. “Come,
kébé
, before Para pitches an apoplexy. She’s pacing your rooms as we speak.”

She laughed and Reule drew her tight to his side as they moved into the hall. He felt the warm length of her body moving sinuously against his, and it just about drove him mad. He made it as far as the stairs, then seized her and dragged her into the dark alcove beneath them. She squeaked out a sound of shock when she abruptly found herself up against the wall, his body trapping hers against the stone and mortar.

“Reule!” she gasped, her chest heaving against the crush of his as he swooped in to seize her mouth. She opened instantly to him, sighing as he tasted her as deeply as he could manage and still give pleasure. She was sweet as ever, the slight tang of a wine she’d enjoyed adding a pleasant surprise to her flavor.

Reule was lost in the wet enthusiasm of her hot mouth in a flash. She never hesitated, never pulled away, never demurred. She took what he gave and gave the whole of her response in return. It was so honest it had the power to bring him to his knees.

Her hands were curling into his hair, holding him tight to her lips. Her feet didn’t even touch the floor any longer because he had dragged her up to meet him. Did she even notice, or was she too consumed by the fire they made together?

His hands, framing her head and face, slid down the slim column of her throat until her breasts and the velvet of her bodice filled his palms. Reule groaned when her nipples responded instantly, hard points seeking the play of his fingers and the feel of his mouth. He buried his hips against her, making very certain she knew that all it took was her kiss and the feel of her to make him thick and ready.

“I want to touch you everywhere,” he growled against her open lips. “I want every inch of your skin to know me. Would you like that,
kébé
?” He took the shudder rippling through her body as an answer. “I want you on my tongue,” he groaned into her mouth, making her moan so sensuously he lost all sense of where he was. He scooped up her skirts in a single sweep of his hand, baring her leg to the upward stroke of his palm. Her skin was smooth and hot, growing hotter with every inch upward he traveled. Behind her knee, the back of her slim thigh, up to the curve of her pretty little bottom.

“Reule,” she moaned.

“Ah, the sound of my name on your lips has the most incredible effect on me,” he said with pleasure as he kissed her down her throat. He felt her wriggle with surprise when his hand cupped one bare cheek of her lush little backside, his fingertips skimming the sensitive crease. He hummed against her pulse in speculation. “You aren’t wearing underclothes?” And just as quickly the wolfish grin faded from his tone. “All this time?
Around my men
?”

“I don’t like…they’re…I didn’t mean…” She couldn’t form a complete sentence as he slid his industrious hand up over the curve of her hip, fingers trailing low along her pelvis until they touched sparse curls.

“You don’t like them?” he supplied for her helpfully, lifting his head so he could burn her with the fierce green-gold heat of his eyes. She nodded mutely, and then gasped breathlessly when she felt the flutter and flick of his teasing fingertips. Reule could smell her heat now, the dampness seeping from her body that was laden with musk and pheromones. It made his head spin and his cock harden into steel. She was excited, hot, wetting herself in preparation for him. He’d only meant to kiss her, to claim his place in her attentions after feeling so slighted by his own friends. In an unexpected instant he’d gone far beyond that.

Reule lifted his mouth back to hers, kissing her even though he had to dodge his own fangs to do so. Then he slid his seeking fingers through feminine folds drenched in liquid heat. He caught her cry of surprised pleasure against a groan of his own.

“
Kébé
, you’re so hot,” he rasped as he glided through soft flesh and sought her center. He found her entrance, circling the sensitive borders silkily before retreating to find the small nub of her clitoris. If he’d doubted his accuracy, he was reassured by her cry and shudder of response. Leaving his thumb resting against that sensitive spot, he once again sought her core. He easily slid a thick finger into her, the way made simple as her body welcomed him with a liquid greeting.

Mystique canted her hips forward, riding his hand with pure instinct and a passionate reaction that dragged Reule down into her uninhibited intensity. He tugged aside her bodice, freeing a breast to his mouth, using a ferocious suction that made her squeal against the prepared seal of his palm against her lips. One hand suppressed her pleasure while the other evoked it. His thumb toyed with her while his finger slid rhythmically deeper. With teeth scraping and sucking her nipple, he slid a second finger into her incredibly snug channel. He reveled in the jerk of her body as she was overwhelmed with sensation. Her hands held him to her desperately and she cried out again from his teasing fingers.

Reule moved his stifling hand and replaced it with his mouth, wanting his lips and tongue against hers as he stroked her responsive body to climax.

“Shall I make you come, sweet?” he asked her roughly. “Can I make you come? What if your people are like the Sánge? Do you need my blood on your tongue to make you climax? Hmm?”

“Please,” she gasped, her diamond eyes heated with a need as bad as his own. He didn’t think she was aware of anything but the response of her wild little body, but then she was looking at him with those hot eyes and he knew she saw him. “Please…” she repeated on a moan before drawing his mouth to hers. She kissed him hard, brutally, causing his fangs to puncture the inside of his bottom lip. He knew she had done it on purpose the moment her tongue swept inside to stroke his blood into her mouth.

She threw her head back in a silent scream as her body closed tight around his torturous fingers. She orgasmed with blinding intensity, her body squeezing around his hand as her hips jerked with violent release. Had he been inside her, she would have milked him dry, and he smothered a frustrated growl against her breasts at that knowledge. The taste of his own blood in his mouth made it all the worse. It should be hers. Her flavor on his tongue as he spilled himself inside her and made her his.

Reule heard her dragging in wild breaths, her entire body falling limp against him. His touch made her jolt in sensitivity and he carefully released her from it. He let her skirts fall back in place, but he kept her pinned hard by the force of his hips and the throbbing erection nestled tight against her. He kissed her gasping mouth as he repaired her bodice, making everything just as it was before he’d pulled her into the alcove.

Except for the wild flush on her skin, the swollen, well-kissed look of her lips, and the topple of red hair that had come down from its constraints. She looked for all the world like she’d just been tumbled, and the idea pleased him ridiculously even if it wasn’t precisely true. His smiling lips drifted to her ear.

“Para is coming to look for you,” he informed her.

“I don’t care,” she sighed sincerely.

“I mean right now. She’s at the head of these very stairs. And while I can keep her from sensing me, you won’t be so lucky.”

With that information and a perverse sense of humor, Reule thrust her out of the alcove with a single sudden shove. She stumbled and corrected herself, whirling in an instant to glare at him and give him a piece of her suddenly violent mind.

“My lady!”

Mystique froze when Pariedes bellowed from the stairs. She quickly smoothed hands over her wild hair and her crooked dress while Reule folded his arms over his chest and leaned back perfectly concealed in the dark alcove. He was grinning when she shot him a deadly look. He simply shrugged a shoulder. As far as he was concerned, it was perfect payback after she had spent the day flirting with his men. Besides, it wasn’t as though she were the one left unsatisfied.

“I’m coming, Para,” she called as she picked up her skirts and started to run, clearly hoping that it would help account for her flush and disheveled state.

“Liar, you already came,”
he thought to her with a smug chuckle.

“I swear you will come to regret this one day,”
she thought back with a feminine growl of frustration.

“You were the one who didn’t want to be treated as fragile and weak,”
he countered.

That made her hesitate in her mind, although she was still running up the stairs straight past Para, who was lecturing her on the need for a lady to be more concerned with her appearance and not to rush. One day soon Pariedes would realize her lady was full of independence and quirks that would never fit the perfect mold of a Sánge lady. And that, Reule decided, was a very good thing. Mystique was bold, honest, and refreshing.

“Reule?”

“Yes,
kébé
, I’m still here.”

“Did you do that to punish me?”

“Did I do
what
to punish you?”
he demanded, stepping out of the alcove and looking up the stairs though she and Para were already long gone.

“You said it served me right…”

“I meant exposing you to Para’s censure, sweetheart,”
he thought gently to her, though his first reaction was fiercer.
“I made love to you because I can’t keep my hands off you. Don’t ever think I’d use that as either punishment or reward. Lovemaking is independent of those things.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. I just didn’t understand.”